Jun Sung Hong, an assistant professor with the Wayne State School of Social Work, has received the 2017 Alberti Center Early Career Award for Distinguished Scholarly Contributions to Bullying Abuse Prevention.

The Alberti Center for Bullying Abuse Prevention, located in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Buffalo, stated that it selected Hong for his exemplary scholarly contributions to the field of bullying abuse prevention and for conducting research that has the potential to influence practice and policy. The author of more than 120 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, Hong has conducted extensive research into the influence of bullying and peer victimization on health and mental health, particularly among diverse adolescents and young adults who have been historically marginalized. In particular, his research looks at racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, sexual minorities, those in low-income communities, and those who have been stigmatized (e.g., youth involved in the juvenile justice system).

Hong, who is also an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Social Welfare at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea, has collaborated with researchers in the United States, South Korea, Taiwan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland to provide school practitioners with evidence-based research that addresses the need for bullying prevention programs for socially marginalized and oppressed youth. He has also worked to expand the research on bullying through his contributions to a number of influential academic publications. Hong currently serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Child and Family Studies and as a guest editor for a special issue of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. He also served as a guest editor of a special issue of Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice.

Hong has presented his research on bullying to national and international audiences at academic conferences, workshops and public service events. These include forums hosted by the American Public Health Association, the Society for Social Work and Research and the American Psychological Oncology Society. Most recently, Hong delivered a keynote addresses on homophobic bullying at the World Anti-Bullying Forum in Sweden and on the issue of vulnerable children in South Korea at the Asian Conference on Social Work Education in Taiwan. He was also an invited guest presenter at the British Psychological Society at Keele University in the United Kingdom.

Hong received his Ph.D. in social work at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and joined the Wayne State University School of Social Work in 2013. He was awarded the 2016-17 Social Work Full-time Teacher of the Year Award and received a 2017-18 WSU Academy of Scholars Junior Faculty Award. The WSU Academy of Scholars Junior Faculty Award is given annually to a select number of junior faculty members who have a significant record of publications or creative achievement and who have achieved national or international recognition very early in their career.