She earned her PhD in urban history from Columbia University in 2006, and worked as an assistant professor of history at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University before coming to San Diego. Kwak has received a number of fellowships supporting research for her first manuscript A World of Homeowners: American Power and the Politics of Housing Aid Post-1945, to be published by University of Chicago Press in November 2015; these include a Social Science Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship for Transregional Research (2012–13); Hellman Faculty Fellowships at UCSD (2012–13, 2009–10); a Faculty Career Development Grant (2010–11) a Herbert Lehman Center for American History Fellowship (2005); and a Fulbright Research Fellowship to Singapore (2003–04).