Department of Anthropology

Education
Ph.D. 2024 University of California, Irvine (emphasis in Medicine, Science, and Technology)
M.A. University of California, Irvine
M.A. 2015 Seoul National University
B.A. 2012 Seoul National University

Areas of Research
Medical anthropology, environmental anthropology, science and technology studies (STS), toxic bodies, ecological imaginaries, nuclear energy, biopolitics, normalcy and naturality, data ethnography; Japan, East Asia, United States

Background
Dr. Kim is a medical and environmental anthropologist whose research examines the entanglements of bodies and ecologies in the context of environmental crises, with a regional focus on Japan, East Asia, and the United States. Her primary research question explores what cultural and biomedical practices constitute a “normal” or “natural” body and environment in a world saturated with toxins. In examining toxic bodies, she has developed data ethnography that qualitatively analyzes everyday practices, imaginaries, histories, and knowledge surrounding biomedical and environmental data.

Her first book project, Unnatural Environment: Data, Politics, and Ecological Imaginaries in Post-Nuclear Japan, investigates the everyday practices of citizen laboratories as sites for reimagining the “natural” status of human and non-human bodies and ecologies. Drawing on ethnographic research at twenty citizen laboratories across Japan, the book explores how data practices reshape ecological relationships between bodies and toxicities in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. It argues that civil engagement cultivates ecological imaginaries and political subjectivities that challenge dominant eco-medical narratives of post-Fukushima disaster governance—not only in Japan but across the broader “nuclear world” encompassing the Trans-Pacific region and the era since nuclear energy’s invention.

Prior to joining Appalachian State University, Dr. Kim was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Visiting Scholar at Sophia University, Japan. She has also contributed to interdisciplinary initiatives such as EcoGovLab and Disaster STS Network, fostering dialogue between academic and non-academic researchers on issues related to disaster, scientific knowledge, the environment, and biomedicine.

Representative Publications

Journal Articles
2025. A Systems Thinking Approach to Nuclear Pedagogy and Workforce Development. Journal of Critical Infrastructure Policy, 6(2), p.e12040. (Co-authored with Costelloe‐Kuehn, Brandon, Daniel A. González‐Rueda, Emily Liu, and James Olson)

Book Review
2025. Book Review on Sustaining Natures: An Environmental Anthropology Reader. H-Environment Roundtable. (Invited)