Steven Kim

Background:

I was born in Seoul, Korea, and I immigrated to the United States when I was 16 years old. I graduated from the Department of Statistics at UC Irvine in Spring 2015, and I joined the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at CSUMB in Fall 2015.

Ph.D. dissertation:

My Ph.D. dissertation focuses on Bayesian dose-response modeling in small samples applied to two different settings. The first setting is early phase clinical trials, and the second setting is toxicology studies in cancer risk assessment.

• In early phase clinical trials, the primary objective is to determine an adequate dose of a new drug. Particularly for cancer patients, a high dose is beneficial to kill cancer cells, but it also kills healthy essential cells in the body. Researchers want to determine an adequate strength of chemotherapy, but it is not easy because a sample size is usually small and study participants are real cancer patients. To solve this practical situation, I developed a statistical method to balance between individual- and population-level ethics.

• In toxicology studies, scientists have been interested in non-monotonic dose-response relationships (known as hormesis). I developed statistical methods for hypothesis testing for hormesis (beneficial effect at low doses and harmful effect at high doses). The dissertation also includes experimental designs for detecting hormesis in small sample studies. A careful experimental design is important because we can obtain the same amount of information about a parameter of interest with a smaller sample size when the study is well designed.

Teaching:

I taught (and am teaching) the following courses at CSUMB:

• STAT 100

• STAT 250

• MATH 320

• STAT 395

• STAT 420

• STAT 421

• STAT 440

Research:

I develop statistical methods for dose-response modeling and experimental design, and I apply statistical methods to address scientific research questions. Since I joined CSUMB in 2015, I have conducted interdisciplinary research with people in Marine Science, Environmental Studies, Science & Environmental Policy, Plant Science, Geriatric Psychiatry, and Kinesiology. In loca communities, I have collaborated with people in Defense Language Institute (DLI), City of Salinas, Salinas High School, Chartwell School, UC Davis, and more. I enjoy interdisciplinary research because I learn various topics from my collaborators.

Contact me (stkim@csumb.edu) if you would like to discuss any research/project involving statistical analysis.