Hyun Jung Kim

Biography:

Hyun Jung Kim is a Professor of Aerospace Engineering at KAIST, where she leads the Space Testing And payload sensoR (STAR) Lab, focusing on advanced spaceborne sensors and extreme-environment materials testing from VLEO to lunar conditions. Before joining KAIST in 2024, she spent 16 years as a Research Physicist at NASA Langley Research Center, working on photonics, phase-change materials (PCM), deployable optics, on-chip spectroscopy, and mission-critical sensor systems. She served as PI for multiple NASA instruments, including reconfigurable optical sensors and deployable telescopes, and was the lead scientist for MISSE-9/14/21 space-exposure missions. She also led development of SAMI, a scientific payload flown on Artemis-I, OSIRIS-REx, and the 2024 Solar Eclipse mission. At KAIST, her group develops PCM-based reconfigurable photonics and high-fidelity space-environment simulation for materials qualification. Her recent work has been featured in invited talks and papers including the MRS Meetings, Nature Photonics, and Nature Review Bioengineering.