Chungmann (Manny) Kim

Chungmann (Manny) Kim

Global Food Security
Health & Nutrition
Climate Change
Data Science (AI for Good)

About Me

Hi 🌍, thanks for visiting my website! I am an applied development economist and data scientist focusing on food and environmental systems, global food security, humanitarian health, humanitarian response, and development challenges in low‑ and middle‑income countries. I am particularly motivated by the question of how humanitarian and development efforts can be both effective in reaching vulnerable populations and efficient in using scarce resources—a challenge that is becoming increasingly urgent as global crises multiply and resources are stretched.
Natural Language Processing Causal Inference Machine Learning Household Surveys Satellite Imagery Unstructured Text

🔬 Research Interests

🌾 Food Security & Nutrition

Drivers of food security and nutrition—how agriculture, the environment, governance, and markets shape people's access to food—and the dynamics of food insecurity across contexts.

🤝 Humanitarian Aid

How resources are allocated, how well they respond to shocks like conflict, climate change, or economic crises, and the conditions under which humanitarian interventions succeed or fall short.

🤖 AI for Early Warning & Early Action

Designing and evaluating AI‑based tools that enhance the targeting and timeliness of humanitarian interventions—turning data into actionable early warnings.

🏥 Humanitarian Health

Understanding how health systems, disease outbreaks, and nutritional crises intersect with displacement, conflict, and environmental shocks in fragile settings—and how interventions can better address health needs of vulnerable populations.

💼 Professional Engagements

Data Scientist & Modeling Specialist (Consultant)
Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) · FAO

Contributing to a real‑time risk monitoring system for early detection of food crises and more timely humanitarian responses.

  • Developing an evaluation framework to assess the reliability and operational readiness of AI and statistical models
  • Applying data‑driven methods to detect and prioritize relevant risk indicators for food crisis alerts
  • Building a pipeline that scrapes, geo‑tags, and applies topic modeling to news articles for real‑time contextual insights

I have also collaborated with several international organizations on operational and research projects—leading technical reports, conducting impact assessments, integrating diverse data sources, and developing predictive models for food security monitoring.

🏛 FAO 🏛 IFAD 🏛 IFPRI

🌱 Field Experience

Fieldwork in Kilosa District, Tanzania (2017)

Kilosa District, Tanzania (2017) — Before starting my doctoral studies, I worked for three years on an agricultural development project in Tanzania, where I led fieldwork and provided technical support. Working with a Korean NGO, I helped secure funding, conducted field‑based research, and worked closely with smallholder farmers to assess needs and implement climate‑resilient interventions. This field experience as a community development practitioner has been a vital complement to my academic training.