Yong Deug Kim is a professor of Social Welfare at SungKongHoe University. He is the dean of SungKongHoe University's general graduate school and the director of the Social Welfare Research Center. Currently, he is working as a member of the Policy Coordination Committee for Persons with Disabilities affiliated with the Prime Minister's Office, a member of the Specialized Sub-Committee for Community Care affiliated with the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and a member of the Specialized Committee for the Employment Promotion of Persons with Disabilities affiliated with the Ministry of Higher Education and Labor. He served as the president of the Korea Academy for Disability and Welfare (2013-14) and the president of the Korean Association for Social Service (2016-17). Kim’s recently published papers include Deinstitutionalization and Building Community-Based Personal Social Services: Community Care that Connects Independence and Interdependence (2018) and The Necessity and Challenges to Strengthen Community Orientation in Community-Based Welfare Organizations - Expanding publicness discourse and changing social service model - (2019). He received his bachelor’s, master's, and doctoral degrees in Social Welfare at Seoul National University."