Min Hee Kim (PhD, MSW, MA), an assistant professor at Rutgers University School of Nursing, has received the 2025 Hurdis M. Griffith Faculty Research Award.

The annual award, which recognizes a School of Nursing faculty member who is building an impactful research program, was established through a generous gift from Hurdis M. Griffith (PhD, RN, FAAN), who served as the nursing school’s dean and professor from 1995 to 2002. Professor Griffith, who retired from Rutgers in 2005, is also an alumna of the Rutgers School of Nursing. Award recipients are selected based on their outstanding efforts to develop research ideas, conduct studies, apply for grant funding, and publish scholarly work.

Kim is a faculty member in the Division of Nursing Science at the School of Nursing and a core faculty member at the Center for Health Services Research within the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research.

Her work focuses on the structural factors that drive health disparities, including neighborhood environments and the experiences of older adults receiving home- and community-based long-term care. She uses large-scale data sources—such as administrative records, electronic health records, and national surveys—and advanced statistical methods to produce findings that support equity-focused policies and community-level solutions.

Kim’s current research, supported by a K99/R00 award from the National Institute on Aging, explores the causes and consequences of delayed diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Drawing from both population health and health services research, Kim is examining how structural racism—and efforts by communities to address it—affect dementia prevention, diagnosis, and care.

She joined Rutgers School of Nursing after completing a postdoctoral fellowship in social epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco. She earned a joint PhD in social work and sociology from the University of Michigan and was a pre-doctoral trainee at the university’s Institute for Social Research.