James is a staff research physicist at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from Seoul National University in 2019. Upon graduation, he joined the lab with the research focus on the interaction between energetic particles and magnetic islands. His research focus expanded in 2022 to include the plasma initiation in tokamaks. He is based in San Diego and serves as the Deputy Physics Operator Coordinator at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility since 2023. He also serves as the Chair of Program Committee for the Workshop on MHD Stability Control and the lead of a Joint Experiment for International Tokamak Physics Activity (ITPA) since 2024.