SunAh Laybourn

SunAh Laybourn, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Memphis, specializing in race and ethnicity, identity development, and Asian America/ns. She is also an Affiliate Faculty Member for the Center for Workplace Diversity & Inclusion, Affiliate Faculty Member in the International and Global Studies Department, and an Academic Research Fellow of the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the university. She formerly served as the co-lead facilitator for the National Civil Rights Museum’s Unpacking Racism for Action six-month cohort program.

Her book, "Out of Place: The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants," examines immigration, citizenship, and belonging through the case of Korean transnational transracial adoptees. Since the early 1950s, over 125,000 Korean children have been adopted in the United States, primarily by white families. Despite being legally adopted, Korean adoptees routinely experience refusals of belonging, whether by state agents, laws, and regulations, in everyday interactions, or even through media portrayals that render them invisible. Dr. Laybourn, herself a Korean adoptee, examines this long-term journey, with a particular focus on the race-making process and the contradictions inherent to the model minority myth.

Outside of academia, Laybourn serves as conference co-chair for the Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network’s annual conference, and she is the organizer of Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month Memphis. She is also the host of Memphis community radio station WYXR 91.7FM’s "Let’s Grab Coffee," a weekly interview-style radio show featuring experts from around the world, who discuss pressing social issues and common curiosities.

Dr. Laybourn has served as a keynote speaker and panelist at universities, professional organizations, and community groups. Her topics include diversity, equity, inclusion; inclusive leadership; anti-Asian racism; Asian American history; and adoptee identity formation, among other subjects.