Jungwon Kim is a writer and cultural organizer. She is also a communications leader, organizational strategy consultant, and journalist who has dedicated her professional life to human rights and environmental advocacy. As a Soros Equality Fellow, she produced a cross-cultural healing model in collaboration with ritual practitioners and clinicians to address historical grief. As Head of Creative & Editorial at the Rainforest Alliance, she directed a multimedia team of writers, videographers, and graphic designers. Earlier in her career, she served as the editor of Amnesty International, a human rights quarterly magazine featuring the work of award-winning journalists and documentary photographers (print circulation 300,000). She began her storytelling career as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, and on-air correspondent for nationally syndicated public radio programs.

Through her consulting practice, Next Wave, she offers wisdom-based impact strategies (social, environmental, narrative), facilitates retreats, and provides mindfulness-based leadership coaching to individuals. Jungwon has served as the board chair of Peace Is Loud and a board member for the Fund for Public Health NYC, which works to build racial and socioeconomic equity in public health outcomes. She did her undergraduate and graduate studies (B.A. Philosophy, dual M.J./M.A. program in Journalism and East Asian Studies) at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in support of her research on self-censorship in the Hong Kong news media, a Foreign Language Area Fellowship, and a Korea Foundation Fellowship.

Jungwon is the mother of two young adults, co-founder of two liberation-centered sanghas in the socially engaged Buddhist tradition of Thích Nhất Hạnh, an amateur musician, and a late-blooming surfer.