Pusan National University
Kim was born on the small island of Geogeum-do in southern South Korea and attended Pusan National University. After completing his mandatory 26 months of military service, he returned to the university and obtained a B.S. degree in Physics in 1998. He spent one year as a graduate student at the same university, and then moved to Penn State University in 1999. He studied low temperature physics and obtained his Ph.D in 2004 under the supervision of Moses H. W. Chan.