Pyung Kim
I am a Ph.D. candidate in Public Policy and an M.S. candidate in Geospatial Information Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. In January 2026, I will join the Center for Spatial Studies and Data Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara as a Postdoctoral Scholar.
My research lies at the intersection of geography, public policy, and data science. My work has three primary threads:
- Neighborhood Effects: Investigating how neighborhood environments shape health and economic well-being.
- Spatial Causal Inference: Developing spatial analytical methods to understand why policy impacts differ across locations.
- AI for Public Policy: Applying machine learning to predict where interventions are most needed and to advance anticipatory governance.
As a PI and GIS specialist, I have contributed to numerous grant-funded projects supported by U.S. federal agencies such as the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR). I have also worked on projects funded by Korean institutions, including the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), the National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER), the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MoHW), and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF).
Research Interests
- Neighborhood Effects
- Human and Economic Geography
- Environment, Health, and Disability
- Spatial Data Science AI for Public Policy
- Spatial Causal Inference and Policy Evaluation