Graduate student B.K. Kim poses for a portrait in the Adler Journalism Building on Monday, Oct. 29, 2018. Kim recently received awards for his dissertation.
By Kinsey Phipps, The Daily Iowan
University of Iowa graduate student Byung Wook Kim was on campus when he received emails stating he won two honors for his research on climate change coverage in his home country of South Korea.
Because of the public setting, he was forced to contain his excitement until he got home, he said.
“My wife cried,” Kim said. “For some people, it may not mean a lot, but for me it was really big.” Byung Wook Kim, known by UI students as BK, won both the Ballard/Seashore Fellowship and the Korean American Communication Association Dissertation Award. The Ballard/Seashore Fellowship is granted through the UI Graduate College, giving winners one final semester devoted specifically to finishing their dissertation. Come 2019, Kim, a teaching assistant and Ph.D. student in the UI School of Journalism and Mass Communication, will no longer serve as a TA for Media Uses and Effects.
UI Assistant Professor Rachel Young said Kim has been part of the class since she began teaching it in 2014.