Two new faculty join the School of Social Work community
On July 1, the School of Social Work welcomes two new faculty members: Hyun-Jun Kim and Margaret Kuklinski. Both are currently affiliated with two of the School’s research and innovation centers.
In his work, Assistant Research Professor Hyun-Jun Kim addresses the health, economic and social inequities faced by multicultural populations including people of color, older adults and the LGBTQ community. In August 2020, he was appointed director of the Health, Sexuality & Gender Research Center at the School’s Goldsen Institute. Before that, he held several research positions where he contributed to multiple federally funded landmark studies, including the School’s Aging with Pride: National Health, Aging and Sexuality/Gender Study as well as Care Network-IDEA (Innovations in Dementia, Empowerment and Action.)
Kim’s research centers on understanding the cognitive and health inequities that surface in the intersectionality of sexuality, race and ethnicity as well as examining social exclusion and support networks as both risk and protective factors. He has written more than 30 articles and published extensively in professional journals, including The Gerontologist, American Journal of Public Health and Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences. He is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, where he was recognized for his contributions on aging and health research. Kim earned a BA in social work from Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea; MSW from Arizona State University; and PhD from the UW School of Social Work.
Associate Research Professor Margaret Kuklinski is a prevention scientist and health economist. She also serves as assistant director of the School’s Social Development Research Group, where she has worked for more than a decade. During this time, she has led or contributed to a number of prevention and health economic studies promoting healthy behaviors and positive development through effective intervention.
Kuklinski is currently co-principal investigator on the longitudinal evaluation of the Communities That Care prevention system, which has demonstrated impact on preventing drug use and antisocial behavior from adolescence into young adulthood. She is also co-principal investigator on a multisite trial testing the feasibility and effectiveness of implementing Guiding Good Choices, a prevention program for parents of adolescents, in three regionally and socioeconomically diverse healthcare systems. She currently co-chairs the Health Economics Working Group for several projects funded under NIDA’s HEAL Prevention Initiative aimed at preventing opioid misuse in adolescents and young adults. She also serves on the board of the Society for Prevention Research. Kuklinski earned both a PhD and MA in clinical and community psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and an undergraduate degree in economics from Harvard University.