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Engineering a Path for the Forgotten: Meet the Professor Transforming Transportation Access - Dr. Kyung "Kate" Hyun

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Title: Associate Professor
Tenured: Yes
Age: 40
Education: B.S and M.S. in Urban Planning and Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea; PhD. University of California, Irvine (Civil and Environmental Engineering)
Career mentors: Dr. Stephen Mattingly, UTA; Dr. Melanie Sattler, UTA
Words of wisdom/advice for new faculty: “Stay resilient and persistent. Aim for steady progress.”


TDr. Kyung “Kate” HyunDr. Kyung “Kate” Hyunhe transition between South Korea and Irvine, California was, at first, jarring to Dr. Kyung “Kate” Hyun, an associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), and deputy director of The Center for Transportation, Equity, Decisions, and Dollars at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s University Transportation Center.

In the capital city of Seoul, Hyun was surrounded by rushing people and academic pressures. The city and country are connected by vast railroads and buses. Although she lived outside of town, Hyun could reliably use public transit to commute to school. But when she came to California to pursue her Ph.D., she discovered a laid-back culture with vast, open spaces, and a people that relied almost entirely on their cars to get around.

“I didn’t have a car of course. I took a bus to the DMV office, and it was a 90-minute journey,” says Hyun. “Later, I found out, that’s just a 15-minute drive! That was an eye-opening experience.”

Car culture is even more rooted where she lives and works now at UTA. Arlington, a bustling city of almost 400,000 people that sits between Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas has no mass transit system. Hyun found herself wanting to use her knowledge in transportation engineering to do more than just think about freight traffic or highway traffic—she wanted to connect with the people of her city.

Hyun began branching outside of her department, de-siloing herself to learn more about populations often neglected or pushed to the margins in society, like low-income or single-parent families, and the elderly.

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