Dr. Soon Suk Yoon Scholarship

Dr. Yoon has been an accounting professor at Western Illinois University since 2013. He is also an emeritus professor at Chonnam National University in Korea, for which he had previously worked for 26 years. His primary teaching interests are financial accounting, accounting theory, and international accounting.

Dr. Yoon earned his bachelor’s degree from Chonnam National University, master’s degree from Seoul National University, and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He was a former president of the Korean Accounting Association. Under his leadership during his presidency, the Korean Accounting Association started many international programs, including an exchange program with the Japanese Accounting Association and the Chinese Accounting Professors Association. He was also a former board member of the Korean Accounting Standards Board. When he served as a board member, South Korea decided to adopt IFRS fully. As a board member, he actively translated IFRS into Korean. He took necessary procedures by participating in decision-making, attending public hearings, roundtable meetings, international standard-setting conferences, and other reach-out activities.

He co-authored three IFRS textbooks: IFRS Intermediate Financial Accounting, IFRS Financial Accounting, and IFRS Principles of Accounting with Keywords in Korean. He also published two professional accounting books, including Hedge Accounting, which was awarded an Excellent Book Award by the National Academy of Sciences, the Republic of Korea.

Dr. Yoon has published 70 original research papers in Korean and international accounting journals. He published eight scholarly papers in the past five years in the SSCI or SCOPUS-indexed journals, with 680 citations since 2018 alone. Dr. Yoon got an h-index of 11 and 12 i10-index, meaning 12 papers with ten or more citations. The number of citations and index scores proves that he publishes many high-quality papers.

Dr. Yoon has been awarded 13 times for his research works or outstanding papers. Korean Accounting Association awarded him a Samii (PWC accounting firm in Korea) Distinguished Professor. In 2019, he was awarded by the Korean Accounting Association for his excellence in research, education, and service. He has been on the editorial board of Asia Pacific Business Review (an SSCI Indexed international journal) since August 2021.

Dr. Yoon founded this scholarship to support future accounting students in pursuit of their studies. He often advocated for student success and was a strong supporter of WIU student groups particularly those specific to Accounting.

CRITERIA:
• Accounting Major (undergraduate or graduate)
• Minimum GPA of 3.0
• Preference to a student with financial need
• Preference to a student involved in accounting organizations