Hoyun Kim is a doctoral candidate in Education Policy, Politics, and Leadership at the University of California, Berkeley School of Education. As an international student from South Korea, she is deeply interested in the changing meaning and value of a college degree and how public education policy impacts college access and student agency. Her dissertation work uses both quantitative and qualitative research methods to investigate the implementation and influence of policies and initiatives that occur in partnership with high school districts and the California Community College system.

Previously, she has worked as a researcher at Handong Global University in South Korea and as a research associate at the Public Policy Institute of California. She is a recipient of the UC Berkeley Regents Fellowship for Graduate Study and a Gardner Fellow at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at UC Berkeley. She holds a BA in Economics and an MA in Education from UC Berkeley.