Amy Jo Kim is an American author and researcher on the subject of online communities. She is noted for her influential conceptual frameworks for online communities, in particular the Membership Lifecycle that was presented in her 2000 book, Community Building on the Web,[1] a design handbook for networked communities. It is considered to be a "cult classic" (available in seven languages) and has become required reading in game design studios and university classes worldwide.[2]
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Kim holds a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of Washington, and a BS in Experimental Psychology from UC San Diego.
Kim has been a designer of social games and gaming environments for clients like Digital Chocolate, Electronic Arts, eBay, Yahoo!, Lumosity, and Limelife.
Kim was formerly the VP of Social Architecture for There, Inc., a virtual worlds platform and services company. She was also Producer/Designer for Paramount's Advanced Product Design Lab, where she developed online service prototypes for MTV, Nickelodeon, and Paramount Studios. Prior to that she developed multimedia database interfaces for Sun Microsystems and NASA Ames Research Center, and designed signal-processing software for neurophysiology experiments. She is founder and CEO of Shuffle Brain, a company developing smart games for social networks.
Amy Jo Kim is married to Scott Kim. In her spare time, she teaches Game Design at the USC Film School.