Park Geun-hye

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Park Geun-hye
Hangul:	박근혜
Hanja:	朴槿惠
Revised Romanization:	Bak Geun-hye
McCune-Reischauer:	Pak Kǔnhye

Park Geun-hye.

Park Geun-hye (born February 2, 1952) is a South Korean politician. She is a member of the National Assembly and was the head of the conservative Grand National Party. She is now in her third parliamentary term, having first been elected in 1998, and is widely expected to be her party's nominee to succeed presidential incumbent Roh Moo-hyun. Her father was Park Chung Hee, the president of South Korea from 1961 to 1979.

Born in Samdeok-dong, in the Jung-gu district of Daegu, Park now resides in nearby Gumi City. She graduated from Seoul's Seongsim High School in 1970, going on to receive a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Sogang University in 1974. In 1987, she earned her doctoral degree from Chinese Culture University in Taiwan. Park was also the president of Yeungnam University from 1982 to 1991.

Park lost her mother to a leftist Japanese-Korean assassin in 1974 and her father to his own intelligence chief 1979 (See: Park Chung Hee assassination). From 1974 to 1979, Park was regarded as the nation's first lady.

On May 20, 2006, a 50-year old man slashed Park's face with a small knife, causing a 10-centimeter wound on her face, requiring 60 stitches and hours of surgery.[1][2]

On February 12, 2007, Park made a much-publicized visit to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her visit culminated in an address to a packed audience at the Kennedy School of Government, where she said she wanted to "save" Korea and advocated a stronger relationship between the Republic of Korea and the US.[3][4]