Drexel's Youngmoo Kim Named Vice Provost for University and Community Partnerships

Dear Students and Colleagues,

Following an in-depth search, we are pleased to announce that Youngmoo Kim, PhD, founding director of the Expressive and Creative Interaction Technologies (ExCITe) Center and professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering, will become vice provost for University and Community Partnerships, effective April 1, 2023.

Regarded as a leader in music technology research and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) education, Youngmoo has worked to build the ExCITe Center into a hub of learning and innovation that is committed to the intersections of technology, creative and performing arts, and digital equity. The ExCITe Center regularly hosts researchers, events, and programs that foster creative endeavors integrating the arts and STEM. Through a transdisciplinary approach, the ExCITe Center, under his direction, has established partnerships with community, cultural, and educational organizations throughout the city, including the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) and SLA Middle School (SLAMS), the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Innovation and Technology, Opera Philadelphia, the United Way of Greater Philadelphia, and many others. ExCITe has been a prominent participant in Drexel’s West Philadelphia Promise Neighborhood initiatives, hosting Action for Early Learning (AFEL) and developing the Young Dragons Summer STEAM camp that has served hundreds of West Philly middle school students since 2018.

Youngmoo’s education research has more recently focused on revealing implicit bias and other exclusionary structures at the core of technology-centered learning. His TEDxPhiladelphia talk in May 2019 focused on the stunning lack of progress in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion in the technology fields in both higher education and industry. This research has helped establish the ExCITe Center as the home of Drexel’s efforts to advance digital equity, particularly in West Philadelphia, spearheaded by ExCITe’s Digital Navigators team and supported by the City of Philadelphia and industry partners. The program provides a community help desk for technical assistance and has refurbished and distributed more than 400 computers to local community members and organizations. The Digital Navigators team also coordinates Digital Literacy programs at the Beachell Family Learning Center of the Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships.

Youngmoo joined Drexel in 2005 and established the ExCITe Center in 2013. He has co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed research publications and has been awarded $16M in external research funding as principal or co-investigator, supported by the National Science Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Barra Foundation, among others. He served on the National Academies committee for “Branches from the Same Tree,” a highly impactful report on the integration of the Humanities & Arts with Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Higher Education. At Drexel, among other honors Youngmoo received the 2012 Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching and the College of Engineering’s 2021 Inclusive Excellence Award. Most recently, he served as a member of the Anti-Racism Task Force, as co-chair of the subcommittee on Graduate and Doctoral Student Life.

Youngmoo succeeds Lucy Kerman, PhD, who concluded her exceptional and highly consequential 12-year tenure as Drexel’s inaugural senior vice provost for University and Community Partnerships in December 2022. Lucy has been both instrumental in ensuring the success of numerous innovative initiatives and indispensable in securing Drexel's reputation, locally and nationally, as a reliable partner and premier, civically engaged anchor institution.

We are confident that Youngmoo is the ideal leader to build upon Drexel’s infrastructure for neighborhood and community partnerships and continue the work of establishing Drexel as the most civically engaged university in the United States, across all three dimensions of engagement: academic; student and employee volunteerism; and institutionally supported neighborhood investment.

We would like to thank Rosalind Remer, senior vice provost of University Collections and Exhibitions and executive director of the Lenfest Center for Cultural Partnerships, and Jason Schupbach, dean of the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, for co-chairing the search, as well as the search committee and every colleague who put their time and effort into this process. We would also like to thank Joanne Ferroni, director for University and Community Partnerships, for her exceptional leadership of the Office in the interim. 

Please join us in congratulating Youngmoo and wishing him well in this new role.

Sincerely,

John Fry
President

Paul E. Jensen
Executive Vice President
Nina Henderson Provost