Yushim Kim is an associate professor at the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University. She has served as a co-editor of environmental policy for Journal of Policy Analysis and Management since August 2018. Her research focuses on environmental justice and policy as well as public health service provision and management.
Her methodological interest is to explore the benefits and shortcomings of developing analytical tools that can structure the complexity of systems such as agent-based modeling, qualitative comparative analysis and social network analysis.
Since Kim joined Arizona State University, her early interest in supporting Ohio Medicaid and WIC decisions at the Ohio Department of Health expanded to studying emerging infectious disease outbreaks, such as that of 2009 H1N1. In collaboration with an epidemiologist, an applied mathematician, and practitioners at the Arizona Department of Health Services, her work in this research area focused on understanding how the Arizona public perceives the risk of the new disease and is prepared for it, as well as how to support critical government decisions during the outbreak. Recently, she joined an interdisciplinary research team at a university in Seoul, South Korea. She is examining the way in which inter-organizational emergency response networks formed and evolved during the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak in Seoul in 2015.
She has also been interested in understanding environmental justice problems, planning, and policy. During a collaboration of approximately ten years, she and her colleagues wrote several research articles on environmental injustice topics and a refereed book, Rethinking Environmental Justice in Sustainable Cities: Insights from Agent-Based Modeling. In this book, they showed how and why environmental injustice needs to be approached as an emergent phenomenon of dynamic urban systems, and, if we use developing analytical tools such as agent-based modeling, what knowledge we can gain that is not readily obtained via other modes of inquiry. Building upon this work and experience in environmental injustice, she and her colleagues currently are developing a new book project on space-based policy tools to improve environmental justice.
What is a standout memory of your time with the college?
A great many good moments during my time at the Glenn College have remained clear in my memory. The short but inspiring conversations I had in doctoral seminars with professors Chuck Adams, Anand Desai, Mary Marvel and Dean Trevor Brown, a campus ice cream store that my advisor and I used to stop by during our brief walking conversations and sitting alone on a bench at Mirror Lake while thinking about my dissertation topic. The Glenn College became a home where I was able to think outside of the box and freely ponder many research ideas. My experience has helped me pursue and build my academic career after graduation. The environment was warm and peaceful, which allowed me to learn and grow. Many thanks to my excellent teachers and wonderful colleagues.
What are you working on now?
I research and teach at one of the most dynamic universities in the U.S. I’ve been interested in thinking, understanding, and analyzing increasingly complex and difficult contemporary policy challenges, and after coming to Arizona State University, I have studied environmental justice and urban environmental policy, while continuing to draw attention to policies and actions in order to prevent and respond to the spread of novel infectious diseases. Urban environmental issues are important research topics that require constant attention and persistent policy efforts in the long run, whereas public health issues such as COVID-19 make up social and policy challenges that we must confront now, and yet do not know the best ways to respond. I have significant interest in research approaches toward understanding and analyzing these contemporary challenges more creatively, either from a new perspective or from multiple perspectives at the same time. These days, I am spending more time to educate creative, smart, and enthusiastic doctoral students who can help us better understand and address these problems in the future.
As a graduate of the college what do you hope for the Glenn College as it moves toward the century mark?
I am well aware that the Glenn College has evolved dramatically over the past decade through competent and discerning leadership. In the midst of all of that change, I still hear that members feel collegiality and comfort in their community. It’s an amazing experience to be in a place where such individual passion and care for others is encouraged. I hope that the Glenn College continues to be such an environment, so that the next generation of scholars who devote themselves to public service with great insights into society can emerge and thrive.