Alum Spotlight: Hyeok Kim (PhD ’24)

Hyeok Kim’s spirit of resilience was rewarded.

After seeing a major conference publication similar to his first research project, Kim was frustrated. Yet he pivoted — reanalyzed the data, restructured the paper, and proposed new research directions. Ultimately, Kim not only published his work, but ended up pursuing a three-year longitudinal collaboration with the other team.

Now a postdoc at the University of Washington’s Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, Kim graduated from Northwestern Engineering in June 2024 with a PhD in computer science. He was a member of the Midwest Uncertainty Collective, advised by Jessica Hullman, Ginni Rometty Professor of Computer Science.

Kim seeks to make complicated computing technologies more accessible and approachable for creators, developers, and designers at varying skill levels that rely on a range of platforms, from smartphones to screen readers.

We asked Kim about his experience earning a PhD at Northwestern, important lessons learned, and his advice for prospective PhD students.

Why did you decide to pursue a PhD in computer science at McCormick?

The CS department at McCormick is strongly committed to pursuing interdisciplinary research. Given my prior background in the humanities and social sciences, I believed the department would better appreciate people like me, which turned out to be very true.

The department has PhD students from diverse backgrounds in terms of gender, race/nationality, and areas of research. This made me feel even more comfortable as I was diving into a new discipline.

What are three things you wish you had known before you started your PhD program?

Firstly, the significance of your work stems from the problem you are trying to solve. As a PhD or master’s student, you may tend to focus too much on specific methods or approaches. While this is still a valid concern in research, it can make you forget about the potential impact of your work once the problem is solved.

Secondly, writing has a critical role in your PhD. In my experience, academic communication is mostly done via written channels. For example, it worked a lot better when I prepared a written research proposal draft in the beginning of a new project because it helped my adviser and other collaborators follow my thought processes and give me more fruitful feedback.

Lastly, communicate your work with people. I once believed that people would recognize my work if I publish. Well, that’s not 100 percent wrong, but you also need to put some effort into disseminating your work with those in your domain, at least. It is not that hard to do! You can start by attending a conference and saying ‘hi’ to people.

Tell us a bit more about a research project you worked on during your PhD program.

During my PhD, I mainly worked on “responsive visualization” projects, or adapting a data visualization design suitable for various devices such as smartphones and desktops. My motivation is to reduce the level of annoyance caused by visualizations not working on smartphones and hence to help people communicate better using different devices. I started by surveying lots of expert-created examples, developing evaluation measures, designing expressions for relevant software, and finally building a tool for authoring responsive visualizations both manually and automatically.

What are some examples of collaborative or interdisciplinary experiences at Northwestern that were notably impactful to your research?

Computer science is an applied area, so it is important to keep up with where the community is going. Northwestern CS has many collaborations with industry partners, and I benefited a lot from the collaboration between Northwestern CS and Adobe Research. For example, I learned how to write a persuasive research proposal targeted to those outside of my lab.

What are a few key skills you learned during your PhD program that you anticipate being critical to your success as a postdoc?

Written communication and credibility. First, the main benefits of well written communication include building common ground with your colleagues and saving time when writing the actual paper. Particularly, I found that writing a research proposal became crucial during the later stages of my PhD because I like to try out different solutions for a meaningful question rather than moving toward clueless directions. In addition, writing notes on each step of my study greatly helped me when I had to promptly draft a manuscript for an extended feedback loop.

My PhD experience became a lot easier once I built some level of mutual credibility with my adviser. After the first few years, my adviser could trust the quality and pace of my progress, and I could always expect high-quality feedback.

What hobbies/activities do you enjoy? What was your favorite part about living in Evanston/Chicago?

I miss Evanston and the Chicago area’s flat ground connected to the lake. It was always easy to walk quite a long distance, particularly along the beach. I did enjoy going to the lake and spending time there with friends, which was basically my weekend activity every summer.

What’s your favorite restaurant in Evanston/Chicago and why?

I recommend M. Henry and Minyoli, both in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago. M. Henry is a breakfast/brunch place which gets packed on weekends. Minyoli has nice Taiwanese noodles, which I was missing since my last trip to Taipei.

What advice do you have for prospective Northwestern Computer Science PhD students?

Try to be a nice person as well! Personally, I become more productive when I am surrounded by nice people that I can be comfortable with, which I believe holds for many others. You can start by appreciating others’ efforts, which are not always visible.