April 24, 2025
In this edition of DRRN Member Highlights, we’re excited to feature Dr. Amy Kim, a professor in UBC’s Department of Civil Engineering. Dr. Kim’s research focuses on enhancing transportation systems and infrastructure resilience, with a particular emphasis on climate adaptation and wildfire evacuation strategies. Her work bridges transportation planning and disaster resilience, aiming to improve community preparedness in the face of environmental hazards.
Amy Kim
Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
Expertise: Transportation infrastructure decisions under climate change impacts, Transportation systems analysis
Could you introduce yourself and tell us about your current research?
My name is Amy Kim and I’m a professor of transportation engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering. I lead the Multimodal Mobility Systems Lab. My students and I are particularly interested in long-distance transportation systems, and complex challenges involved in connecting remote communities. These systems have always been very expensive to build and maintain, but they are also more vulnerable to climate change impacts and the ever-growing costs to provide reliable and affordable connection. Over the last 14 years, I have been involved in research in BC, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories studying problems of road, air, and marine transportation planning considering climate change, including both slow-onset impacts as well as the impacts of natural hazards and extreme events on transportation infrastructure and operations, and emergency evacuation. We use different modelling approaches and data to answer questions in this space.
What motivated you to become a part of the DRRN community?
I was initially interested in the DRRN community because of its focus on disaster risk and resilience, but like many things, have remained involved primarily because of the wonderful community of researchers I have met and worked with over the years. It is a very interdisciplinary group that bridges many areas of expertise across both campuses and beyond. I find our events to be so intellectually engaging because of the entirely different perspectives that members bring to them, and it is always such a welcoming and open space. I am always learning something new. I’m happy that my graduate students are involved with this group as well. In addition, the DRRN has been a great way to meet community members and experts beyond campus.
What do you wish practitioners or policymakers would ask you about your research? What insights would you like to share with them?
Outside the university, I work primarily with practitioners and policymakers in government. They are faced with the very complex challenges of planning and operating transportation systems where costs due to climate change impacts are rising faster than the availability of resources to handle these issues. I guess I’m more interested in hearing about the work they are doing and the problems they are facing, and generating ideas together about how our research may be able to provide some additional knowledge that could be helpful in their work.