​​​​Dayoung Kim, Ph.D. & LAB-IREEN

Dr. Dayoung Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Education (College of Engineering) at Virginia Tech and a Director of the LABoratory for Innovative and REsponsible ENgineering workforce (LAB-IREEN). She also serves as an Executive Committee Member and Affiliate Faculty of the Center for Future Work Places and Practices (CFWPP). Her work is grounded in a practice-informed scholar orientation that views rigorous theory and real-world practice as mutually reinforcing. Through active partnerships with industry, government, and practicing engineers, she conducts research at the intersection of engineering practice and engineering workforce development. Her research examines how engineers work across diverse employment settings, including industry - from startups to large, established firms - and government, and how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and advanced manufacturing are reshaping engineering work and workforce needs ["engineering practice" research]. Building on these insights, she focuses on designing and evaluating educational, training, and policy initiatives to cultivate an innovative and responsible engineering workforce ["engineering workforce development" research]. Across her research, teaching, and service, she aims to bridge academia, industry, and government by translating insights from engineering practice into scalable systems for education, workforce development, and science and technology policy. She received her Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Purdue University and her B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Yonsei University and Purdue University, respectively. She was the 2022 Christine Mirzayan Science & Technology Policy Graduate Fellow at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).