Sang-mi KIM is the President of the Research Institute of Local Councils. She is a commissioner of the Presidential Committee on Autonomy & Decentralization of the Republic of Korea. She is also a commissioner of the subcommittee on Autonomous Innovation in the Presidential Committee on Autonomy & Decentralization. She was an advisor commissioner to the Committee on the Improvement of the Council's Operation Institution of the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province Council. She is a permanent director of the Korean Association for Local Government Studies(KALGS) and an audit of the Korean Association for Policy Sciences(KAPS). She earned her B.A. Public Administration, M.B. Public Administration & Ph.D. Public Administration from Ewha Womans University. She studied Public Administration and local autonomy at Université De Paris Pantheon-Sorbonne in France, Keio University, and YOKOHAMA National University in Japan. The main academic interests are administrative philosophy, local autonomy, and local politics.