Jae Yeon Kim

Jae Yeon Kim is a Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and Better Government Lab Fellow at University of Michigan's Ford School of Public Policy. In January 2026, she will join UNC-Chapel Hill as Assistant Professor of Public Policy. Her PhD in Political Science is from UC Berkeley.

Dr. Kim's research examines how governments build capacity for effective policy implementation, with focus areas including:

• Administrative burdens in safety net programs
• Civic infrastructure's role in democratic governance
• AI applications in public service delivery
• Racial group formation during the War on Poverty (book project: Unseen and Uncounted)

Her methodological approach combines computational techniques with traditional political science methods, including field experiments, archival research, and machine learning. Recent publications span top journals like Nature Human Behaviour, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and Nature: Scientific Data.

Notable recognition includes:

• Paul Volcker Junior Scholar Research Grant (2025)
• Emerging Scholar Award in Civic Engagement (2024)
• APSA Best Dissertation Award in Urban Politics (2022)
• WPSA Best Paper Award in Asian Pacific American Politics (2020)

Her research is supported by Carnegie Corporation, Gates Foundation, and Russell Sage Foundation. Dr. Kim co-founded Data for Good Roundtables and serves on committees for Summer Institute in Computational Social Science, GovAI Coalition, and APSA Task Force on AI. She maintains active government/nonprofit partnerships to ensure research directly informs policy practice.