About Su Kim

Born and raised in the heart of Los Angeles, Su Kim is the child of two South Korean immigrants. She grew up in working-class neighborhoods home to diasporic Koreans and Central Americans, where she witnessed community members forging survival through interdependence and mutual aid. For much of her life, Su was raised by a single mother alongside her two sisters. Her family's journey navigating stigmatized experiences–including poverty, violence, and mental illness–revealed to her the failures of institutions charged with providing public health and safety. This inspired her to engage in community-based advocacy and pursue a career holding public institutions accountable.

A first-generation college graduate, Su earned her Bachelor of Arts in geography from UC Berkeley with departmental high honors and a minor in global poverty and practice. While earning her degree, she interned at Justice Now, documenting human rights violations in California women's prisons, and later at Californians United for a Responsible Budget monitoring the state corrections budget and advancing humane decarceration. As a Robert and Colleen Haas Scholar, she authored an 80-page honors thesis examining how California officials leveraged humanitarian crises in prisons to secure billions of dollars for mental health-focused jail expansion throughout the 2010s.

Since 2020, Su has worked at UnCommon Law, a non-profit providing trauma-informed legal representation and advocacy for Californians serving life sentences and navigating the parole hearing process. She joined as a legal advocate providing pro-bono assistance for life-sentenced clients seeking parole, then served as Senior Policy Manager, leading data-driven parole research and policy advocacy. There, she co-founded the California Alliance for Parole Reform and launched legislative campaigns for bills including the Parole Hearing Language Accessibility Act (AB 2310). As a Solís Policy Institute Fellow in 2023, Su worked with a team of criminal justice fellows to pass California's first law (SB 474) limiting price gouging in state prison canteens. Across this work, she conducted investigative research into harmful yet little-known practices within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, drawing on firsthand accounts and government records. She has also provided expert testimony and analysis to the California Legislature on parole and post-conviction issues.

Su is now pursuing a Master’s degree in journalism to train in investigative reporting. She aims to produce watchdog journalism that exposes systemic harm, holds power to account, and honors the humanity of those impacted.