From 1991-2001 Kim taught English, working in urban middle and high schools in Denver and Honolulu. The populations of these schools were primarily students from low-socioeconomic homes with diverse ethnic backgrounds. For the last 8 years of her teaching in public schools, she taught a variety of courses in a nationally recognized career academy program at a Farrington High School. Since 2007, she has worked on various educational research projects and consulted with several Honolulu high schools looking at a variety of reorganization and educational models, and providing professional development for teachers.
Kim attended Colorado College and completed her BA in speech-communication at the University of Hawaii. After a year of long-term substituting work at the middle and high school levels, she went to Colorado and received her teaching certificate from Metropolitan University of Denver. She returned to Honolulu and became adjunct faculty in the English as a Second Language Department at Hawaii Pacific University, a high school English teacher, and a teacher in an adult education program in Honolulu. In 1999, Kim completed her Masters degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Hawaii's College of Education. Following her teaching, she took time off to have a family and complete her PhD. in Curriculum and Instruction and Teacher Education from the University of Hawaii. Her studies included school reform, small learning communities and high school career academies.
Kim currently resides in Hawaii and is married to her husband Long. Together, they chase after three active children.
Her interests include football, soccer, gymnastics, reading to her children's classes and making movies with her kids and their friends.