Dee Kim is a multidisciplinary designer and design researcher. After receiving a BS degree in Human Environment and Design from Yonsei University in 2009, she is currently an MFA candidate in Media Design at the Art Center College of Design. She has divided her time working between Critical and Social Design.

Her research has focused on the psychological implications of things, exploring people's relationships to digital technology, objects, spaces and its impact on our identity and culture. She uses print, motion, physical prototypes as well as interactive installations to come up with speculative design proposals, interventions, stories and scenarios which, she hopes, can serve as an alternative perspective to the pursuit of efficiency.

Her interest is also in bringing social change and design solutions to real-world problems. Dee currently co-leads a project for UNICEF Innovation Labs, and previously was a Design Fellow in the Innovation Unit of UNICEF (2011). At UNICEF, she focused on developing frameworks for innovation, process, and strategy; and collaborated with different UNICEF partners in design, research, social science, and technology. Through her self-initiated projects, she questions the role of the designer in social contexts: what voluntary services can an individual designer offer that is as valuable as urgent medical care offered by doctors, for example; what are the affordances of Design and how critical is it to people unaware of Design?

During her undergraduate studies, Dee was trained in design planning and management. She dealt with many case studies for problem-solving using AEIOU, and learned to observe and interpret the needs of users. These days, her approach in research has shifted from being merely observational to being more experimental. For example, her research methods include the development of small interventions that act as a catalyst for behavioral change, visiting a site and imagining the profile of users (as if an FBI agent in Criminal Minds), and making books of peoples everyday lives based on their twitter feeds, among other methods.

In her free time, she explores her own identity, the place she belongs, and curious terms through design. In the past, she has also worked outside the field of design in fashion, PR, production, publishing, and marketing. She hopes to infuse herself to be an active partner, a strong community builder and a good designer.