Congratulations to Dr. Christine Kim for winning the 2025/2026 UBC Killam Faculty Research Prize! The Killam Research Prizes recognize outstanding research and scholarly contributions by faculty members across various disciplines. Awarded annually, these prestigious prizes celebrate exceptional achievements that advance knowledge and reflect UBC’s commitment to research excellence.
Dr. Kim is Professor in the Department of English Language and Literatures where she has served as the inaugural Associate Head Research since July 2025. In addition, she is a faculty affiliate of UBC’s Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies program (ACAM). Dr. Kim was also editor-in-chief of Canadian Literature (2020-25). Before joining UBC, she was faculty at Simon Fraser University where she was a founding co-director of SFU’s Institute of Transpacific Cultural Research. Her research and teaching interests focus on the Asian diaspora, the Cold War, imperialism, and race.
She is the author of Brutal Fantasies: Imagining North Korea in the Long Cold War (Duke UP, 2025), The Minor Intimacies of Race (University of Illinois Press, 2016) and co-editor of Cultural Grammars of Nation, Diaspora and Indigeneity (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2012).
Dr. Kim’s current research examines literary and filmic representations of Korean diasporas and migrations within illiberal spheres.
“I am honoured to receive this Killam Faculty Research Prize from UBC for my research on race, migration, and diaspora,” she says. “It is deeply meaningful to know that my peers and the university value humanities-based research that engages with questions of power and representation.”
