Sunai Kim

Biography

Contact
Phone: (310)338-5880
Email: sunai [dot] kim [at] lmu [dot] edu
Office: Pereira 130

Dr. Kim is a Fulbright Specialist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, specializing in Structural and Earthquake Engineering. During her tenure as a Fulbright Specialist (2019-2024), she will be going on a short term exchange at an international institution. Dr. Kim is also a licensed structural engineer with seven years of full-time industry experience.

Prior to joining LMU in 2017, Dr. Kim worked as a structural engineer at Los Angeles Unified School District (2016-2017), working on school retrofit projects based on AB-300 and developed District-wide acceptance criteria for ASCE41-16 Tier 1/2 analysis. She also worked as a structural design engineer at John A. Martin and Associates for five years, working on all aspects of gravity and lateral design/analysis for commercial buildings. Some of her major projects include Soka University Performing Arts Center and Academic Building (concrete and CMU shear walls, long span trusses) and USC John McKay Center (column-less basement, transfer level post-tension beams), among many others. Other work experiences include working as a forensic engineer at Thornton Tomasetti in New York (2014), exploring efficient ways to design tall buildings, as well as working as a transportation engineer at CTE|AECOM in Chicago (2006-2007).

Education (3)

University of California, Los Angeles: Ph.D., Structural & Earthquake Engineering 2016

University of California, Los Angeles: M.S., Structural & Earthquake Engineering 2008

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: B.S., Civil Engineering 2006

Social

Areas of Expertise (11)

Structural Engineering

Structural Codes & Guidelines

Performance-Based Design

Tall RC Core Wall Buildings

Perform 3D

Nonlinear Response History Analysis

Reinforced Concrete

Structural Reliability

Engineering Education Research

Spatial Skills

3d Printing

Accomplishments (4)

Seaver College Fellowship

2020-11-30

Awarded from Frank R. Seaver College of Science & Engineering.

Finalist | ASEE ERM Best Paper Award

2020-05-05

Dr. Andrew Forney (Computer Science) and Dr. Sunai Kim (Civil Engineering) were honored as one of four finalists in the 2020 ASEE ERM (Educational Research and Methods) Best Paper Competition, for the paper "Redefining Retention in STEM Education: New Perspectives on a Student-centered Metric of Success."

Ascending Scholar Award

2020-03-23

Awarded from Loyola Marymount University.

Fulbright Specialist | Structural & Earthquake Engineering

2019-06-01

Awarded from the U.S. Department of State.

Affiliations (3)

• Licensed Civil Engineer | CA (C74450) and HI (18932)
• Licensed Structural Engineer | CA (S6042)
• Certified Post-Disaster Safety Assessment Evaluator | California OES (68479)

Languages (2)

• English
• Korean