Minhyong Kim is Director and Sir Edmund Whittaker Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences in Edinburgh. He is also Distinguished Professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study. He works on arithmetic geometry, the study of spaces built out of finitely-generated systems of numbers, employing ideas of mathematical physics, especially topological quantum field theory. Minhyong studied mathematics at Seoul National University, then received his Ph.D. in Mathematics at Yale University. He has held professorships at Purdue University, University College London, and the University of Oxford, where he was head of the number theory research group. Before moving to Edinburgh, Minhyong was Christopher Zeeman Professor of Algebra, Geometry, and Public Understanding of Mathematics at the University of Warwick.

Minhyong has a keen interest in public engagement. He has given numerous presentations at schools, teacher-training workshops, and culture programmes in companies on a wide range of topics in mathematics and its interface with other domains of inquiry, especially physics and economics. He has published nine books written for the general public, many of them bestsellers and one staying in the top twenty bestsellers list among general books in Korea for 8 weeks in 2018. He has just published a cartoon adventure featuring Schroedinger' s Cat and a book of conversations on music and mathematics with Cellist Sung-Won Yang.

As director of the ICMS, Minhyong is overseeing Mathematics for Humanity, a new programme to support work in the mathematical sciences that has immediate potential to enhance human welfare.