Shinyoung is a PhD candidate at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, and joined FSE as a visiting researcher and recipient of a 2012 Fellowship for prospective researchers from the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Her dissertation focuses on agricultural transformation in Indonesia. She recently completed her field research in rural Java in 2011, dealing with challenges facing small farmers in the current process of Indonesian agricultural transformation, and their responses to these challenges. She is analyzing how Indonesian small subsistence farmers can increase labour productivity in the evolving context of the middle-income country trap and green restructuring. She is currently writing about labour transition from agriculture to non-agriculture in middle-income countries, with a focus on rural Java, and the various challenges associated with this process.

Her interests center on occupations in transition, dealing with restructured jobs, labour, and skills. She has worked as a consultant for the International Labour Organization on two projects related to green jobs; she was a coauthor of the joint ILO/EU publication, Skills for Green Jobs, and a contributing author to reports on skills and occupational needs in the green economy.