Professor Young Mie Kim Receives Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship

This fall, School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC) Professor Young Mie Kim won the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship (VDAP). The award recognizes University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty members whose distinguished scholarship has advanced the confines of knowledge, and whose excellence also includes teaching or service. The VDAP provides $75,000 in flexible funding to assist recipients in furthering their scholarly pursuits.

Kim was nominated by the SJMC Awards Committee in recognition of her programmatic and engaged scholarship, theoretical and methodological contributions, and integration of research, teaching and public service.

“I’m deeply honored by this award because it represents a recognition of my full career from the university,” Kim said, “I’m very grateful for the university’s recognition, and also the support from students, collaborators and colleagues who influenced my work.”

Kim’s research focuses on media and politics in the age of data-driven digital media, specifically the role digital media play in communication among political leaders, non-party groups and citizens. Her most recent research project, Project DATA (Digital Ad Tracking & Analysis), looks into the sources, content and targets of digital political campaigns. The project uncovers the “behind-the-scenes” operations of these campaigns, such as microtargeting practices. With her line of work residing in a challenging research environment, the VDAP award represents much more to Kim.

“I see it as support for my kind of research, of course, but also for our research community as a whole,” Kim said, “It signals that the university values scholarship in challenging, complex social problems and engages with it directly.”

The VDAP title will remain with Kim and her future work for the duration of her professional career. In the future, Kim plans to research topics such as artificial intelligence’s (AI) influence on collective knowledge formation, the microtargeting of digital media ads, and the potential of digital redlining. The award money from the VDAP will assist her in these endeavors, and help her to fund the processes of uncovering more information about our current digital political environment.

“This is one of the highest recognitions, and it motivates me as an individual, researcher and teacher to continue contributing to the university’s scholarly and educational mission,” Kim said.