Team

Principle Investigator

Honghyok Kim

Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track)
(2022-present)
Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Illinois Chicago

Affiliated Faculty
(2025-present)
Institute for Environmental Science and Policy, University of Illinois Chicago

Postdoctoral Associate/Fellow
(2019-2022)
Dr. Michelle Bell’s research group at Yale University

Ph.D & MPH, Environmental Health
(2013-2019)
Department of Public Health Science, Graduate School, Korea University

BPH, Environmental Health
(2008-2013)
Department of Environmental Health, Korea University

Current PhD Trainees/Student Collaborators

Yi-Ling Cheng
PhD Student, Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences

Kathryn Phung
Incoming PhD Student, Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Fall 2026–

Genesis Xiomara Insaurralde
PhD Student Collaborator, Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Dr. Kim supervised her Master’s Thesis.

Cameron Zielke
PhD Student Collaborator, Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Dr. Kim serves on his PhD committee.

Sean Shen
PhD Student Collaborator, Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics

Training Activities

Independent Research
Each student receives individualized advising to develop and lead an independent research project intended for peer-reviewed publication. This includes the full research process, from literature review and idea conceptualization to data management, study design, statistical analysis, and original manuscript writing.

Weekly PhD Journal Club
A small internal PhD journal club, intentionally kept to approximately six students to support close discussion and hands-on intellectual training, including current trainees, student collaborators, and two additional PhD students. The group discusses selected foundational, high-impact, and methodologically important papers in environmental epidemiology, exposure science, exposure prediction, and causal modeling.