Born and raised in South Korea, I finished high school at the Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies with the Global Leader Certificate. I then moved to Austin, TX to attend the University of Texas at Austin (UT), where I received my B.S. in General Geology with Special Honors in Geological Sciences and B.A. in Music. During my time at UT, I gained valuable research experience in a paleogeochemistry lab, learning the basics of wet chemistry and soil sample processing.
I then started my doctoral studies with Dr. Holly Michael at the University of Delaware. Leveraging my experience with geochemistry, I led projects to understand the spatiotemporal dynamics of beach reactions controlled by the mixing between fresh groundwater and saline seawater. I led several field campaigns and laboratory experiments, and even numerically modeled, for the first time, particulate carbon contributions to beach water quality. You can view the details of my projects here, the resulting publications here, and my nifty model here.
As of September 2019, I have taken a position at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow. Expanding upon my groundwater modeling expertise, I have ventured into the world of remote sensing. I am currently focusing on comparing groundwater storage measurements from GRACE (and GRACE-FO), InSAR-measured subsidence, and numerically-modeled groundwater depletion / subsidence in the Central Valley of California. My most recent work showed that satellite data are sufficient to complement, or act in lieu of, in-situ data for data-poor regions at sub-basin scales. This work can be found here.
Kyra H. Kim 