Dr. Myoung-Hwan Kim is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Texas Tech University. He received his Ph.D. in experimental condensed matter physics from the State University of New York at Buffalo and did postdoctoral training at the University of Maryland, College Park, and Columbia University. Before joining TTU in 2019, he was on the faculty of The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, where he received the UT System STARs Award and the AKPA Outstanding Young Researcher Award.

His group uses infrared spectroscopy and polarimetry to study quantum materials and novel nanostructures, with a focus on under-explored frequencies from the long-wave mid-infrared to the far-infrared. The research is supported by NSF, DOE, and ONR, in collaboration with Sandia/Los Alamos National Laboratory and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.

He was named the 2023 Emerging Inventor of the Year at Texas Tech and a 2024 TechConnect Innovation Awardee for a long-wave infrared phase modulator and polarization ellipticity standards. His group has graduated four Ph.D. students, and he leads K-12 science outreach in Lubbock supported by the Helen Jones Foundation.