Brian Heseung Kim

Brian Heseung Kim is the Founder and Chief Data Scientist of Open Augments, where he builds and disseminates open-source AI infrastructure for researchers, nonprofits, and public-interest organizations. In related work, he provides direct AI infrastructure and data science strategy consultation to national education nonprofits, policy research institutions, and universities — and trains researchers, nonprofit staff, and policy practitioners on responsible integration of AI tools into analytical workflows. His career has been anchored by a consistent through-line: applying his data science and AI expertise to expand access, equity, and capacity in education and the public sector.

Previously, Brian served as Director of Data Science, Research and Analytics at The Common Application, where he led a highly cross-functional research program analyzing over a decade of data and millions of student submissions across 1,000+ member institutions. While there, he expanded the organization’s capacity for large-scale data analyses and program evaluation, piloted and operationalized robust and nuanced matching programs covering hundreds of thousands of students per year, pioneered rigorous AI analyses and toolsets, and greatly increased access to the rich Common App data warehouse for broad external research collaborations.

Brian’s research generally examines structural inequities and barriers to higher education access through data science methodologies applied to large-scale educational datasets. His work — investigating systematic differences in recommendation letter language, disparities in extracurricular activity reporting, and college readiness trends by parental education and detailed racial/ethnic backgrounds — has been published in journals like Educational Researcher, American Educational Research Journal, and Education Finance and Policy, and covered by outlets like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Brookings Institution, and Bloomberg. His work has been generously supported by the NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, Ascendium Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Fidelity Foundation, Institute of Education Sciences, and the Gates Foundation.

Brian holds a Ph.D. in Education Policy (with specialization in education data science) from the University of Virginia, an M.P.P. from UVA’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, and a B.A. in Economics and English from Bowdoin College. Before entering the research world, he was a public high school English teacher in Maine and a counselor for first-generation college-bound students via Upward Bound.