Bio
Christopher Hyun is an environmental scientist and recovering Christian missionary who writes about water, religion, queer Korean-American experiences, and his 10+ years living and researching in India. He has published peer-reviewed papers and a textbook chapter in Springer. His first fiction publication (about a raccoon boyfriend) appears in Electric Literature. He currently lives in Berkeley, California with his boyfriend (who is probably not a raccoon).
Writing
- Debuted queer flash fiction in Electric Literature
- Winner of Bay Area Book Festival Writing Contest
- Writing accepted for fiction workshops led by Namwali Serpell, Vikram Chandra, and Joyce Carol Oates
Research
- "Engineering predictable water supply: the humans behind the tech." Book chapter in An Introduction to Development Engineering. Christopher Hyun, Tanu Kumar, Alison Post, and Isha Ray. Springer (2023).
- "Clean latrines now—a pandemic history lesson." Christopher Hyun. Dissertation chapter. UC Berkeley (2020).
- "Sanitation in low-income regions: a cross-disciplinary review." Christopher Hyun, Zachary Burt, Yoshika Crider, Kara Nelson, Sharada C.S. Prasad, Swati Rayasam, William Tarpeh, and Isha Ray. Annual Review of Environment and Resources (2019).
- "Frontline worker compliance with transparency reforms: barriers posed by family and financial responsibilities." Christopher Hyun, Alison Post, and Isha Ray. Governance (2018). (Formerly "Why street-level bureaucrats don’t comply: insights from the water valvemen of Bangalore.")
- "Using crowd-sourced data to study public services: lessons from urban India." Alison Post, Anustubh Agnihotri, and Christopher Hyun. Studies in Comparative International Development (2018).
Field Work
Almost no one in India has 24-hour drinking water flowing to their house. Through the streets of India, I followed the valvemen who turn water on and off in different neighborhoods. I studied their day-to-day activities, attempting to figure out why they seemingly defied directions from the utility and the promising startup that aimed to help make water more predictable. Read about my work during its initial stages in UC Berkeley News and in the Bangalore Mirror.
Download the FREE open-access textbook chapter on this research