Jiyoung Kim

I am an Assistant Professor (fixed-term) of Political Science at Michigan State University.

My research focuses on how climate change affects intergroup relations in the Global South. My dissertation examines how climate change-induced economic hardship impacts social fabric and explores effective strategies for mitigating these negative effects in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Nigeria as my main research site. My broader research portfolio includes work on public attitudes toward climate-induced migration, building social cohesion in conflict-affected areas, and gender issues. Methodologically, I employ a diverse toolkit including statistical inference, geospatial analysis, surveys, experiments, and in-depth fieldwork interviews.

My research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Ecological Economics. My work is supported by the NSF-APSA Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant and the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation Dissertation Fellowship among others. I received my PhD in Political Science from UCLA in 2025.

You can contact me at jiyoung.esther.kim [at] gmail [dot] com.