Faculty

Dr. Jaesung An

Dr. An is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Hospitality, Recreation and Tourism. Jaesung was born and raised in Seoul, Korea until he came to the United States to join the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where he received all of his three degrees (bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D.) within the department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism. Jaesung has experience working in the Sports industry during college and Campus Recreation during his master’s program.

Jaesung’s research interest is promoting health, well-being, and meaningful life in the context of leisure, especially among older adults. He has worked with older adults having multiple chronic health conditions to help them experience healthy aging. Also, he is interested in the experience of boredom, mindfulness, and the onset of eustress (i.e., good stress) and distress (i.e., bad stress) while engaging in leisure activities. Recently, Jaesung has developed and validated initial version of Leisure Eustress-Distress Scale (LEDS) among older adults. Currently, he is actively engaged with various research projects, publications, presentations, and book chapters with scholars around the globe. Last but not least, Jaesung is really passionate and dedicated to students leaving his class changed and grown by the experience. His goal as a teacher is to assist students in becoming autonomous learners, taking ownership of their learning experience, and applying the knowledge and skills developed in the classroom to their careers and lives.

Besides doing research and teaching, Jaesung enjoys spending time with his wife and a cat. They love traveling, watching good movies, and finding good local restaurants. Jaesung is also passionate about playing sports such as tennis, golf, soccer, and baseball.