Wan Hee Kim is a PhD student in Geography & Sustainability at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research centers on the Location Modeling, Geography of Transportation, and Geographic Information Science (GIS) with several key research themes. Specifically, his current research topics include (1) Enhancing computing power of optimization model by incorporating spatial structure (2) Identifying spatial structure of global maritime hubs and corridors. He has taught as a lab instructor for several courses including Quantitative Methods in Geography, Geo-visualization & GIS at University of Tennessee Knoxville and for a Computer Cartography and big-data visualization at Seoul National University. Beyond teaching, he has taken on academic leadership as President (2025–26) and Treasurer (2024–25) of the Korean Graduate Student Association at the University of Tennessee. His publications include an article in Maritime Policy & Management and prior work in Korean geography and cartography journals. Before starting his Ph.D. study, he served as an Intelligence Officer in the Republic of Korea Navy and worked as a spatial data scientist across public and private sectors.