Keekyoung Kim
University of British Columbia Okanagan
Keekyoung began his position as the Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UBC Okanagan in July 2013. He earned Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto and holds M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Calgary and B.Eng in Mechanical Engineering from Kyung Hee University, South Korea. Before joining to UBC, Keekyoung worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University Mechanical Engineering and Pediatric Cardiology; a Research Fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School and Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University; and a Postdoctoral Fellow in Mechanical & Nuclear Engineering at Pennsylvania State University.
Keekyoung’s research areas are within the broad range of biomedical and biomechanical engineering. His research aims to develop high-throughput and cost effective methods and systems that will optimize 3D cell microenvironments for the regeneration of human body tissues and mimic human physiological systems for drug tests. Since human tissues and physiological systems are complex, Keekyoung’s research uses various techniques in biomaterials, tissue engineering and microfluidics to develop integrated platforms, such as 3D bioprinting systems, high-throughput cell-based screening systems and tissue-on-a-chips, to mimic complex biological systems. The long term goal of this research is to provide researchers with high-throughput and cost effective tools to discover new therapeutic methods and drugs for overcoming human diseases including cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal diseases and cancer.