Young Ae Kim

Young Ae Kim is a professor, researcher, and award-winning designer whose work envisions the future of human-centered creativity at the intersection of industrial design, graphic design, UX/UI design, and human factors psychology. Her interdisciplinary practice integrates artificial intelligence, emotional intelligence, and emerging technologies to reimagine how design can deepen empathy, expand imagination, and shape meaningful experiences. Through collaborations with global brands such as Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Nike, New Balance, Baskin-Robbins, and Citibank, her work bridges research, education, and practice. Her current explorations focus on AI-driven creativity, immersive media, and data visualization as transformative forces in learning and innovation.

PRIMARY TEACHING AREAS
+ User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) Design Research
+ Immersive Experience Design - Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality
+ Data Visualization & Interactive Design
+ Design Methods & Research
+ Emotional Design

ADDITIONAL AREAS
+ Sustainable Package Design
+ Brand Strategy and Campaign

Young Ae Kim’s research reimagines the future of design at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI), human experience, and creative agency. Her work advances theoretical frameworks that examine how computational systems transform creativity, cognition, and meaning-making, positioning design as a central discipline in shaping human–AI futures. Grounded in design theory, human factors psychology, and affective computing, her scholarship interrogates AI as a co-creative force within human-centered systems.
Her research redefines creativity in the age of intelligent machines through generative design, intelligent interfaces, and machine-assisted visual reasoning, reframing the designer’s role as a strategic curator of emergent outcomes. She investigates UX/UI design, emotional and affective interactions, immersive environments (VR/AR/MR), and data visualization as interconnected systems that foster usability, empathy, experiential knowledge, and sensemaking. Collectively, her work expands the intellectual and ethical foundations of design research and education in the era of intelligent systems.

Citations listed below are presented in a standardized, modified format for display purposes only. They do not necessarily reflect the preferred style and conventions of the faculty member or discipline.

Huggins, A A., Baird, C L., Briggs, M, Laskowitz, S, Hussain, A, Fouda, S, Haswell, C, Sun, D, Salminen, L E., Jahanshad, N, Thomopoulos, S I., Veltman, D J., Frijling, J L., Olff, M, van Zuiden, M, Koch SBJ, Nawjin, L, , Zhu, Y, Li , G, Stein, D J., Ipser, J, Seedat, S, du Plessis, S, van den Heuvel, L L., Suarez-Jimenez, B, Zhu, X, Kim, YoungAe, He, X, Zilcha-Mano, S, Lazarov, A, Neria, Y, Stevens, J S., Ressler, K J., Jovanovic, T, van Rooij SJH, Fani, N, Hudson, A R., Mueller, S C., Sierk, A, Manthey, A, Walter, H, Daniels, J K., Schmahl, C, Herzog, J I., Říha, P, Rektor, I, Lebois LAM, Kaufman, M L., Olson, E A., Baker, J T., Rosso, I M., King, A P., Liberzon, I, Angstadt, M, Davenport, N D., Sponheim, S R., Disner, S G., Straube, T, Hofmann, D, Qi, R, Lu, G M., Baugh, Lee A., Forster, Gina, Simons, Raluca, Simons, Jeffrey, Magnotta, V A., Fercho, K A., Maron-Katz, A, Etkin, A, Cotton, A S., O'Leary, E N., Xie, H, Wang, X, Quidé, Y, El-Hage, W, Lissek, S, Berg, H, Bruce, S, Cisler, J, Ross, M, Herringa, R J., Grupe, D W., Nitschke, J B., Davidson, R J., Larson, Chris, deRoon-Cassini, T A., Tomas, C W., Fitzgerald, J M., Blackford, J U., Olatunji, B O., Kremen, W S., Lyons, M J., Franz, C E., Gordon, E M., May, G, Nelson, S M., Abdallah, C G., Levy, I, Harpaz-Rotem, I, Krystal, J H., Dennis, E L., Tate, D F., Cifu, D X., Walker, W C., Wilde, E A., Harding, I H., Kerestes, R, Thompson, P M., and Morey, R. Smaller total and subregional cerebellar volumes in posttraumatic stress disorder: a mega-analysis by the ENIGMA-PGC PTSD workgroup., 611-623. Vol. 29, Iss. 3 Molecular psychiatry, 2024. (DOI: 10.1038/s41380-023-02352-0)
Kim, YoungAe. UDA Webinar 2023 Vol. 5 of 6. Vol. 5 of 6 United Design Alliance, 2023.
Kim, YoungAe, Grame, Robert , and Hsu, Ginnie. ABOUT OUR DISCIPLINE NOW REFLECTING UPON DESIGN MANIFESTOS “THREE INDIVIDUAL’S THOUGHTS ON THE IMPACT OF DESIGN MANIFESTOS WITHIN EDUCATION AND OUR PROFESSION. In Our Discipline Now 2022, editors Robert Hower. Vol. 2022 UDA About Our Discipline Now United Design Alliance (UDA), 2022.
Kim, YoungAe, and Li, Qiuwen. Happiness Participatory Media: Cultural Differences in Happiness on Instagram. In Advances in Interdisciplinary Practice in Industrial Design , pp 394-402. Springer, Cham, 2020.
Kim, YoungAe, and Li, Qiuwen. Reconstructing Social Identity Through Physical Attractiveness. In Advances in Interdisciplinary Practice in Industrial Design , pp. 385-393. Springer, Cham, 2020.
Kim, YoungAe, and Li, Qiuwen. Analysis of Facial Emotion Recognition in Video Chatting. Human-Centered Design: Collaborative Design and Emotional Intelligence. In Advances in Interdisciplinary Practice in Industrial Design , pp. 217-226. Vol. vol. 790 Springer, Cham, 2018. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94601-6)
Kim, YoungAe. Emotional Evidence: Influences on Happiness from the Frequent Positive Visual Exposure. In Advances in Interdisciplinary Practice in Industrial Design , pp 227–237. Iss. 978-3-319-94600-9 Springer, Cham, 2018. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94601-6_24)
Kim, YoungAe. Emotion Displays in public: a comparison between Asia & North America. Vol. 8th International Conference on Applied Human Factor and Ergonomics Los Angeles, CA: Springer, 2017.

Kim, YoungAe, Knedler, Cory, and Henrichs, Cody, Creativity in The Aage of AI. Presented at the 2025 SDCAA/SDAEA Conference, Aberdeen, SD. (October 10, 2025)
Kim, YoungAe, Unlock Your Creativity & Uplevel Your Typography: 3D and Non-Font Experiments with Midjourney. Presented at the TypeThursday LA: Connect, Learn and Grow with Fellow Designers, Los Angeles, CA. (July 31, 2025)
Kim, YoungAe, Designing the Next Interaction: UX & UI in a Changing World. Presented at the 2024 AAF Student Day, Sioux Falls. (October 01, 2024)
Kim, YoungAe, Information Design in Moving Contents. Presented at the California State University Fullerton, Fullerton, CA, United States. (April 16, 2024)
Kim, YoungAe, Emotional Influence with Conversational Icon Designs. Presented at the UDA Webinar 2023 Vol. 5 of 6, Virtual. (October 27, 2023)
Kim, YoungAe, Peterson, Gregory, Martin, Rebecca , Zhang, Weiwei, and Li, Qiuwen, The Color of Data: Relation of COVID-19 Statistical Display Mode to Content Interpretation and Emotional Salience. Presented at the Easter South Dakota Research Symposium, Sanford Center - Corporate Office, Sioux Falls, SD, USA. (June 14, 2023)
Kim, YoungAe, Emotional User Experience Design from Physical Space to Virtual Space and Mixed Reality. Presented at the Meet the Expert, Korea. (June 2023)
Kim, YoungAe, Big Data Visualization of COVID-19 Using AR. Presented at the Industrial Design with Big Data, Daejeon. (December 27, 2022)
Kim, YoungAe, Li, Qiuwen, Beam, Brian, and Horvath, Andrea, Emotional Expression on Social Media through Virtual Reality: Cultural Differences on Instagram. Presented at the SIGGRAPH AISA 2021 Extended Reality (XR) Exhibition, Japan. (September 2021)
Kim, YoungAe, Graphic Design App in classroom . Presented at the SDAEA (South Dakota Art Education Association) Conference, Brandon, SD. (October 07, 2016)
Kim, YoungAe, and , Positive Visceral Design. Presented at the International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics, Olando, FL. (July 29, 2016)
Kim, YoungAe, Emotional Evidence . Presented at the International Urban Media Design Conference, Beijing, China. (June 20, 2016)
Kim, YoungAe, Preparing Future Designers with Critical Design Thinking from the Impact of New the Technological Shifting. Presented at the The Hawaii International Conference on Education (HICE), Honolulu, HI. (January 04, 2016)
Knedler, Cory, Kim, YoungAe, and , The Next Leader as Critical Thinkers. Presented at the 2016 Hawaii International Conference on Education, Honolulu, HI. (January 03, 2016)
Kim, YoungAe, Graphic Design Essential Techniques. Presented at the SDAEA (South Dakota Art Education Association) Conference, Vermillion, SD. (October 09, 2015)
Kim, YoungAe, Design Approach for the Development of Metropolitan Public Transportation. Presented at the Metropolitan Public Transportation, Japan, China. (July 2015)
Kim, YoungAe, Creative work and Teaching.... Presented at the OTA 2015-Day of OTA conference: Collaborative network for region’s creative class, South Dakota. (June 30, 2015)
Kim, YoungAe, Preparing Future Designers with critical design Thinking from the impact of the new technological shifting.. Presented at the UCDA Design Education Summit, National Design Educator Conference, Brookings, SD. (May 18, 2015)
Kim, YoungAe, Design Approach for the Development of Metropolitan Public Transportation. Presented at the CHI 2015 Crossings, Seoul, Korea. (April 19, 2015)
Kim, YoungAe, "The Power of Perception. Presented at the ASD, Las Vegas, Nevada. (August 2014)
Kim, YoungAe, The Moment of Truth. Presented at the SDRS - Seoul Design Research Society at Seoul, Seoul, Korea. (July 2014)
Kim, YoungAe, "Seeing Invisible". Presented at the DRS - Design Research Society Annual Conference, Umea, Sweden. (June 2014)
Kim, YoungAe, Seeing Invisible. Presented at the IUMDW - International Urban Media Design, Seoul, Korea. (June 2014)
Kim, YoungAe, "The Magical Moment of Adaptation". Presented at the SB-Sustainable Brands Conference, San Diego, California. (June 2014)
Kim, YoungAe, SCIENCE + DESIGN. Presented at the The International Conference on Intelligent Information Processing and Knowldge Managment (ICIIPKM), Beijin, China. (July 2013)
Kim, YoungAe, Beautiful Data Visualization. Presented at the Design Habit, Vermillion, SD. (June 2013)
Kim, YoungAe, Science GEOMETRY. Presented at the The International Urban Media Design Workshop (IUMDW), Seoul, Korea. (June 2013)
Kim, YoungAe, IMPERFECT BEAUTY. Presented at the The Hawaii International Conference on Education (HICE), Honolulu, HI. (January 2013)
Kim, YoungAe, Think right: responsibility driven sustainable design education. Presented at the The Hawaii International Conference on Education (HICE), Honolulu, HI. (January 2013)
Kim, YoungAe, Design for Touch. Presented at the SDCAA, Brookings, SD. (October 2012)
Kim, YoungAe, Power of Interactive Brand Promotion. Presented at the ASD, Las Vegas, Nevada. (August 2012)
Kim, YoungAe, Creating Green. Presented at the Design Research Society (DRS), Bangkok, Thailand. (July 2012)
Kim, YoungAe, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Presented at the Design Habit, Vermillion, SD. (June 2012)
Kim, YoungAe, Design for Touch. Presented at the International Urban Media Workshop (IUMW), Seoul, Korea. (June 2012)
Kim, YoungAe, Beautiful Interactive Design. Presented at the Future of Web Design, London, United Kingdom. (May 2012)
Kim, YoungAe, Portfolio. Presented at the Portfolio Design, Savannah, GA. (May 2012)
Kim, YoungAe, New Overload: Day One. Presented at the UCDA Design Education Summit, Blacksburg, Virginia. (May 2012)
Kim, YoungAe, Design Habit & USD MFA Program. Presented at the Buena Vista University, Storm Lake, IA, USA. (November 2011)
Kim, YoungAe, Trademark. Presented at the Buena Vista University, Storm Lake, IA, USA. (November 2011)
Kim, YoungAe, Imperfect Beauty. Presented at the Dordt College, Sioux Center, IA, USA. (November 2011)
Kim, YoungAe, Design Strategic Plan. Presented at the Four Season, Los Angeles, CA. (July 2011)
Kim, YoungAe, Creativity in Digital Era. Presented at the Seesaw Design Group, New York, NY. (July 2011)
Kim, YoungAe, Are you Ready?. Presented at the University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD, USA. (June 2011)
Kim, YoungAe, Brand Gap. Presented at the Four Season, Los Angeles, CA, USA. (July 16, 2010)
Kim, YoungAe, What is Service Design?. Presented at the Design Habit, Vermillion, SD, USA. (June 16, 2010)
Kim, YoungAe, Design Process. Presented at the Seoul Design Innovator Course, Seoul, Korea. (May 28, 2010)
Kim, YoungAe, Getting the right idea VS getting the idea right . Presented at the Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. (May 24, 2010)
Kim, YoungAe, More than Logic . Presented at the Sookmyung Women's University, Seoul, Korea. (May 20, 2010)
Kim, YoungAe, Web Creative . Presented at the KIPFA Web Award Korea, Seoul, Korea. (May 12, 2010)

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