"We Design an Elevated, Creative, Inclusive, Smart, Innovative, Operational, and New community where people live by applying behavioral insights."
Greetings! I am an associate professor in Department of Public Administration at Kookmin University (KMU), Seoul, South Korea. I am also founder of DECISION Lab that helps all levels of government and private sectors design, manage, and deliver innovative, sustainable and inspiring local places where people feel welcome, happy and safe.
My current research interests include public organizational management and performance, human resource management, and behavioral policy/public administration. My research generates novel insights about organizational behavior and performance in public sectors by exercising behavioral insights and methods. In general, I focus on answering one major question, how public leaders, policymakers, and governments (especially at the local level) can achieve more productive policy outcomes by improving management and leadership. Also, my research largely focuses on examining policis and strategies of local governments to generate economic development, and the impact of local economic development activity on resident and community well-being.
In recent years, my research has focused on experimental studies and policy evaluation in the fields of health policy, healthcare systems, and health and human services. I am particularly interested in using experimental designs to rigorously assess the effectiveness and efficiency of health policies. I also build and analyze data-driven predictive models to evaluate the short- and long-term impacts of policy interventions. More recently, my work has expanded to examine decision-making processes in healthcare systems, health disparities, and ways to improve access, equity, and efficiency in healthcare and welfare programs.
I earned my Ph.D. in public policy/administration from the University of Missouri, and postdoctoral in the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University-Newark. I also served as a visiting assistant professor in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Institute of Technology before I joined KMU in 2020.