Kim’s research particularly dives into U.S. involvement in the Korean military conflict during the Cold War. Her unique approach examines the experiences of ordinary people caught in the machinery of war, rather than narratives of government and military leaders.
She details those accounts in her award-winning book, “The Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War: The Untold Story.” The book focuses on Japanese American soldiers whom the U.S. drafted into the conflict. Many of them served as interrogators during the Korean War after being held in U.S. internment camps just five years prior.
Before working at UW-Madison, Kim taught at New York University. She also completed her undergraduate studies at Yale University and received her doctorate from the University of Michigan. Her next book, tentatively titled, “The World that Hunger Made,” explores how states, organizations and political economies have attempted to regulate hunger rather than solve it.