John Kim is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Henry Samueli School of Engineering. He earned his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University in 1978. Prior to joining UCLA in 1993 as the Rockwell International Distinguished Professor of Engineering, Kim worked at NASA Ames Research Center, advancing from postdoctoral fellow and research scientist to Chief of the Turbulence and Transition Physics Branch. His career has centered on advancing computational approaches to fluid dynamics, particularly through pioneering direct numerical simulations (DNS) that have become foundational tools for studying turbulence physics.

Kim's research specializations include numerical simulation of transitional and turbulent flows, physics and control of turbulence and heat transfer, and numerical algorithms for computational physics. As director of the UCLA Turbulence Research Group, his team employs in-house computational fluid dynamics codes to investigate incompressible and compressible turbulent flows, such as boundary-layer transitions, drag reduction using superhydrophobic surfaces, and roughness effects. Key publications include the landmark paper 'Turbulence statistics in fully developed channel flow at low Reynolds number' (Kim, Moin, and Moser, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 1987), which has garnered over 7,000 citations, and other highly influential works on turbulence simulation with more than 41,000 total citations on Google Scholar. His contributions have had profound impact, evidenced by his election to the National Academy of Engineering in 2009 for 'development of direct numerical simulation and seminal contributions to the physics and control of turbulent flows.' Major awards also encompass the Ho-Am Prize in Engineering (2002), Otto Laporte Award from the American Physical Society (2001), NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1985), H. Julian Allen Award from NASA, and fellowships from the AIAA and APS. Kim served as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Physics of Fluids from 1998 to 2015.

Professional Email: jkim@seas.ucla.edu