Shim Hwa-jin

Shim Hwa-jin (born December 24, 1956) is a South Korean academic specialising in the history of clothing and textiles. She was president of Sungshin Women's University from 2007 until 2017, when she was imprisoned for embezzlement.

Biography Shim is the fourth daughter of chairman Shim Young-hyun, and granddaughter of Sungshin Women's University's founder Li Suk-jeong. She graduated from the Department of Clothing at Konkuk University, then completed her PhD at Sungshin Women's University, after which she became a lecturer there. Meanwhile, investigative journalists found that a prominent individual's daughter had been admitted to Sungshin after cheating in the assessment, in addition to a relative of Shim's being appointed as a tenure-track lecturer on the basis of a plagiarised dissertation.

On 7 February 2017, the Seoul Northern District Court returned a guilty verdict for embezzling 378 million won from school funds. In response to the ruling, Shim's husband resigned from his position on the campaign team for presidential candidate Moon Jae-in, claiming that, if his wife was corrupt, he "would shoot her with a pistol."