Bomin Kim

Bomin Kim is an urban designer and lecturer specializing in social sustainability, urban informatics, and geospatial data science. Her research advances systems methods to understand how urban environments influence social cohesion, urban resilience, and human health in vulnerable populations. She holds a graduate degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a doctorate in sustainable urbanism from Washington University in St. Louis. 

Her current research focuses on how infrastructure systems structure inequality in vulnerable communities. Active projects include a multidisciplinary collaboration with the WashU School of Medicine and McKelvey School of Engineering investigating how neighborhood contextual factors shape neuropsychiatric symptoms in persons living with dementia, and Logistics Urbanism, which examines the spatial ecology of warehouse development in St. Louis. Both projects employ community-engaged approaches that center lived experience and community agency within broader structural analysis.

Before joining WashU, she worked as a building science and environmental designer at Sasaki Associates and continues to consult on sustainable design projects. Her recent multidisciplinary research is supported by grants from the Mellon Foundation, Novo Nordisk, and the Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering and Mayor’s Office.

She serves on the Community Advisory Board for the Engaged City Initiative and integrates systems thinking into design education as both an analytical framework and participatory practice.