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His research focuses on developing a human-centric audio system that immerses listeners with realistic auditory environments through collaboration with Yamaha Corporation Japan.

He has focused on engaging undergraduate and master students in research. With funding from Yamaha Corporation, he has conducted subjective evaluation to determine salient factors associated with an enjoyable listening environment. In collaboration with Professor Richard King in McGill University (Canada) and Professor Toru Kamekawa, they investigated the cross-cultural influence on listeners in a virtual auditory environment. Through experiments conducted in three countries, they found semantic differences influenced by cultural background of the listener groups. The results were published in Virtual Reality Journal.

His research interests include enjoyable auditory environment based on a multichannel audio system, virtual reality audio, rehabilitation of listening experience, auditory training, cross-cultural comparison of listening experience and virtual acoustics. He wrote the Surround Sound with Height Channel chapter in the first edition of the Immersive Audio (Focal Press). Prior to joining RIT, Dr. Kim worked for Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) as a recording engineer where he produced CDs and for Yamaha Corporation as a research associate where he researched human-factors for music and listening experiences. His doctoral dissertation dealt with "Influence of musical context on listeners' preference for multichannel-reproduced piano music."

Sungyoung Kim
Associate Professor
College of Applied Science & Technology