Leonid Petrov graduated from St. Petersburg State University (1994) in Russia where he majored in Korean History and Language. He obtained a PhD in History at the Australian National University (2003) where he specialised in the studies of North Korea. In 2003-2005, he was a Korea Foundation post-doctoral fellow at the Academy of Korean Studies (Seongnam), lectured on Korean History at the Intercultural Institute of California (San Francisco) and Korean Economy at Keimyung University (Daegu). In 2006-2007, Dr Petrov acted as Chair of Korean Studies at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po).