School of Planning, Design and Construction

Affiliated Programs/Initiatives/Projects:

• Autonomous Futures.

Jun-Hyun Kim is a professor and program director of the Landscape Architecture Program in the School of Planning, Design & Construction at Michigan State University (MSU). He is also the program director of the Master of Environmental Design (MED) degree. Before joining MSU through a target search, he held positions as an assistant professor at Texas A&M University (TAMU) and California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo.

Dr. Kim specializes in assessing the impacts of environments on human health and community resiliency, with a focus on both human and ecological health. He has successfully secured multi-million-dollar research grants from various organizations such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR), Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), US Department of Housing and Urban Development (US HUD), Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), and Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF). His research involves assessing environmental perception, measuring mental and physical health, conducting environmental assessments, and producing planning and design outputs. His work has contributed significantly to understanding the factors that enhance health and resilience in high-risk populations, leading to the development of resilient communities. With a multidisciplinary approach and collaborations with scholars from diverse research backgrounds, Dr. Kim has expanded his research agenda to include the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of community resilience planning and design. His recent efforts have resulted in securing an internationally collaborative research fund from the Architecture and Urban Research Institute in South Korea. He has published numerous articles in reputable peer-reviewed journals and has presented over 100 refereed papers and abstracts at various conferences.

As an educator, Dr. Kim teaches a range of core landscape architecture courses, including landscape design studios and site engineering courses. He has also led a study abroad program in Costa Rica and has brought over 30 service-learning projects into his teaching, providing students with high-impact experiential learning opportunities. Under his guidance, a number of student design teams have achieved state and national recognition, winning awards such as the EPA National Campus RainWorks Challenge and ASLA Student Design Awards. During his career, he served on more than 70 graduate student committees.

Dr. Kim has demonstrated strong commitment and leadership in his service to MSU and greater academic communities. He was elected as CELA President in 2023, CELA’s Secretary and Vice President for Communications, Outreach, and Publications in 2018; appointed as an editor for the Landscape and Ecological Engineering journal in 2020 and as a co-chair of the CELA Urban Design Track in 2017. He was also selected as one of the few members of the inaugural cohort of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR) Leadership Development program at MSU in 2019.

Dr. Kim has received numerous awards for his outstanding contributions in the field. Notably, he has received the Excellence in Design Studio Teaching Award (senior level) from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA). In receiving that award, he became the first faculty member in CELA’s more than 100-year history to win eight CELA awards including three major ones: Excellence in Research Award in 2015, Excellence in Teaching Award in 2017, and Excellence in Design Studio Teaching Award in 2021. He has been honored with the MSU CANR Excellence in Teaching Award at the Established Teacher Category in 2023. He has also been the recipient of the Montague-CTE Scholar University Teaching Award, Outstanding Instructor Award, Outstanding Mentor Award from TAMU.