March 17, 2026 | Erin Bluvas, bluvase@sc.edu
As an assistant scientist with the USC Prevention Research Center (PRC), Yesil Kim plays a key role at both the beginning and the end of every project the center leads. When PRC investigators like director Sara Wilcox, health promotion, education, and behavior professor Brie Turner-McGrievy and exercise science associate professor Christine Pellegrini apply for a new grant, they turn to Kim.
Since 2023, the statistician has been their go-to resource for developing the methodologies and analyses sections of PRC proposals. After the funding is secured, the intervention implemented, and data collected, Kim’s expertise is at center stage again. She also enjoys helping graduate students with their research projects and co-authoring manuscripts published by the PRC team.
“I provide rigorous statistical analysis to test the aims of the research project – often applying new methodologies at the request of my colleagues,” says Kim, noting that the challenge of learning and executing new methods is her favorite part of her job. “When I have success solving the problem, I’m happy as I have accumulated tangible experiences in statistical analyses.”
“Yesil is an incredible asset to our team,” Wilcox says. “She brings exceptional statistical expertise to PRC projects and consistently seeks out new methods and approaches to strengthen our work. I’m also impressed by her ability to translate complex statistical concepts into clear, understandable insights that faculty and students can use.”
Kim's experience has grown over the course of her career, beginning with her time as an educational consultant for industrial organizations in South Korea. Her role in developing leadership training to match personality characteristics sparked her interest in assessment and evaluation, eventually leading her to pursue graduate degrees in the United States.
In 2017, Kim enrolled in a doctoral program at Texas Tech University focused on research, evaluation, and statistics. She spent a year as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette before joining USC. Working with organizational, educational, and now public health settings has been fulfilling in the ways these areas both vary and overlap.
From among the locations she has lived in the U.S., Columbia has been the largest and busiest. Kim likes the mix of urban and rural elements as well as the opportunities to explore beautiful places (she loves sketching both nature and architecture like the Hampton-Preston Mansion and Gardens), volunteering at Friendship to help seniors in Columbia, and finding a piece of home at her Korean church and the Korean Festival held in downtown Columbia (she ran into USC colleagues while selling skewered teriyaki chicken, pancakes, and cucumber Kimchi as a vendor for her church).
“I was proud seeing how popular K-culture is becoming in the U.S.,” she says. “And I enjoy volunteering to do things like deliver gifts at Christmas. Even though I saw myself as Santa Claus, it was me being given a present with a warm heart.”
The Staff Spotlight Series is sponsored by the Arnold School's Office of Wellness and Collective Engagement.