Dr. Yong-Rak Kim has come full circle. In a way, you could even say he's home.
The newest professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University once walked the building as a graduate student.
“Texas A&M Engineering is one of the best engineering programs in the world, and that was the main reason I chose it for my master’s and Ph.D. degrees. Now I am back to my education home as a faculty member to teach students and work together with my former teachers and many colleagues,” he said. “This is extremely special to me, and it is a great opportunity. I am honored to be a part of this great program.”
Kim joins the transportation and materials division specializing in materials. He will contribute research excellence, technological innovation and workforce development as a core team member of the department.
“I enjoy teaching courses on materials with a primary interest in infrastructure materials and their understanding to design our infrastructure better,” he said. “I like to integrate fundamental science (physics, mechanics and chemistry) with practical applications for better materials and structures under various challenges. I look at teaching as a core integration with my research."
Kim’s primary research area is understanding and predicting behavior of materials and structures that are subjected to various loads (mechanical and environmental) and different conditions (ordinary to extreme).
"To do this, I integrate experimental approaches with computational modeling in multiple length-time scales," he said. "I believe this way we can make our understanding, analysis, prediction, design and manufacturing of different classes of materials and structures much better than conventional methods."
Kim said to prepare students for the professional field he will focus on bridging the gap between fundamental understanding and practical applications.
"I like to train students who will be fully responsible and technically and ethically prepared, engineers who can contribute to our society," he said. "Classroom instruction and advising graduate students help my research, and new research outcomes and findings enrich my teaching."
Kim plans to team up with other researchers, not only within the department but also with other departments and colleges and the Center for Infrastructure Renewal (CIR).
"I expect my materials research focusing on fundamental mechanics and science can bring and develop opportunities to collaborate," he said. "In particular, my research background and experience are very well-suited to the mission and vision of the CIR.”