Hwa Yol Jung was born in a small village at the foothills of the majestic Mt. Chiri which created an aura of mystique when Siberian tigers were roaming, who now becamed extinct - the victims of so-called progress, civilization, or modernization. He received B.A. and M.A in political science in 1957 and 1958, respectively, from Emory University in Atlanta, GA. After receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 1961, he spent the academic year of 1961-1962 at the University of Chicago and took the graduate seminar on Heidegger's "Sein und Zeit" given by the late John Wild, which was his introduction to phenomenology. His scholarship is highlighted by the following publications: (1) "The Foundation of Jacques Maritain's Political Philosophy" (in 1960 as a graduate student), (2) "Existential Phenomenology and Political Theory (ed., 1972) with a "Foreword" by Wild, (3) "Comparative Political Theory and Cross-Cultural Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Hwa Yol Jung (2009) and (4) "Transversal Rationality and Interculturals Texts: Essays in Phenomenology and Comparative Philosophy" (2011) which was awarded the Edward Ballard prize in 2012. His works have been translated into European and East-Asian languages.
Lester Embree is a Constitutive Phenomenologist trained by Dorion Cairns and Aron Gurwitsch and author and editor of numerous works by them and also Alfred Schutz and specializing in the theory of the cultural sciences.