About Me

I am a Health Economist, and my research focuses on HPV-associated cancers, immune diseases (inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), HIV/AIDS), and social determinants of health (SDoH). I am currently an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) of Health Economics at The University of Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health. I work on various population health studies, health outcomes studies, and economic evaluations, using large-scale data, spatial statistics, and mathematical decision modeling. My research interests are HPV-associated cancers and prevention, HPV-associated cancers among IBD or HIV/AIDS patients and LGBTQ+ population, cancer survivorship, and SDoH (including area-level social vulnerability) and their impact on evidence-based medicine. I am especially interested in using distributional cost-effectiveness analysis for reducing health inequalities.

My background before coming to the Public Health field is in Economics (Master's) and Business Administration (Bachelor). I also was involved in Medical Law & Ethics research during and after my undergrad. I have a solid background in Economic theories I obtained over my Business and Economics majors, and I could build more applied Health Economics skills upon that during my PhD training. I am an (interdisciplinary) social scientist.

I am an avid weight-trainer, and I love planting and K-pop. I also host virtual writing retreats and support writings in a global organization ("Advancing Gender/Ethnic/Class Minorities in Academia"), where I discuss/learn how to create more inclusion and diversity and interact with fellow academics all around the world. I am a Seoul (Korea) native.

I use They/She pronouns.