Young-Jin Kim

July 2003- present Postdoctoral Research Associate, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Ph.D. (2003) Bio. & Environmental Engineering, Cornell University (concentration in Soil & Water Engineering)

M.S. (2001) Bio. & Environmental Engineering, Cornell University (concentration in Soil & Water Engineering)

B.S. (1997) Agricultural Engineering, Konkuk University

Research History

I was born in Seoul, Korea 1971. My life as a graduate student began in the summer of 1997. My first year was fully spent to build my "environmental engineering" fundamentals by taking courses in biology, environmental chemistry, and math. In 1998, my first experiment was designed to investigate preferential flow under different rainfall rates using undisturbed Arkport soil and packed sand columns. We successfully monitored preferential flow for both cases, and developed models modifying traditional convective- dispersive equations by setting appropriate boundary conditions. During the last stage of master's work, I helped environmental sampling to detect cryptosporidium oocyst from runoff water. After switching to Ph.D program, my first job was finding flow paths on the vegetative filter strips, which preferential flow may occur. The objective of this study was to maximize the phosphorus (P) removal capacity of filter strips by helping distribute wastewater uniformly to the filtering area. On a 3m grid system, more than 50 wells were installed and tracer was applied to monitor subsurface flow. We concluded that various types of flow exist even in one filter strip, and soil hydrology is important in determining leachate P concentration. The distribution of P and flow paths were graphically compared using 3-D field program. In addition, we analyzed sorption capacity of soils by the isotherm experiment. I recently began my new job as a postdoc of Dr. Scott Brooks at ORNL. Preferential flow and its influence to uranium transport is of interest. Eventually, the project aims immobilization of uranium in the soil by microbial reduction.

Family Pictures

Family Home Page

Main page