The Korea Foundation said its new president Kim Woo-sang took his post on Monday at the head office in southern Seoul. He was named to head the foundation by President Lee Myung-bak late last month.

Kim is a long-time scholar serving as a political science professor at Sookmyung University and Yonsei University and director of the Institute of East & West Studies at Yonsei Univeristy.

He was a senior adviser of the presidential transition committee on foreign policy, security and national unification in early 2008 when the Lee Myung-bak administration was inaugurated.

The 53-year-old received a Ph.D in political science from the University of Rochester in 1988.

(yoonmi@heraldcorp.com)