Research Interests: 20th century U.S. history, Asian American history, transnationalism and diaspora, race and ethnicity, and social and political movements.

Richard S. Kim is Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of Asian American Studies. He received his Ph.D. in U.S. History from the Department of History at the University of Michigan.  He also obtained a M.A. in Asian American Studies from UCLA.  His research and teaching interests include 20th century U.S. history, Asian American history, transnationalism and diaspora, race and ethnicity, and social and political movements.

He is the author ofThe Quest for Statehood: Korean Immigrant Nationalism and U.S. Sovereignty, 1905-1945 (Oxford University Press, 2011). He is currently working on ex-Death Row inmate Chol Soo Lee’s memoir, Freedom Without Justice, that chronicles Lee’s conviction and incarceration for a crime he did not commit in the 1970s and an ensuing grass-roots pan-Asian political movement that helped secure his historic release from Death Row in 1983.  Following the completion of Chol Soo Lee’s memoir, he will begin a book project on the Free Chol Soo Lee social movement that emerged from Lee’s legal cases. In 2014-15, Richard Kim received a UC Davis Chancellor Fellows Award in recognition of his outstanding research, teaching, and service record.