Campus/People
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Professor J.H. Lee Wins the Innovators in Science Award
Professor Jeong Ho Lee from the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering won the Early-Career Scientist Award of the 2020 Innovators in Science Award. The New York Academy of Sciences administers the award in partnership with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company.
The Innovators in Science Award grants two prizes of US $200,000 each year: one to an Early-Career Scientist and the other to a well-established Senior Scientist who have distinguished themselves for the creative thinking and impact of their rare disease research. The Senior Scientist Awardee is Dr. Adrian R. Krainer, at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory whose research focused on the mechanisms and control of RNA splicing.
Prof. Lee is recognized for his research investigating genetic mutations in stem cells in the brain that result in rare developmental brain disorders. He was the first to identify the causes of intractable epilepsies and has identified the genes responsible for several developmental brain disorders, including focal cortical dysplasia, Joubert syndrome—a disorder characterized by an underdevelopment of the brainstem—and hemimegaloencephaly, which is the abnormal enlargement of one side of the brain.
“It is a great honor to be recognized by a jury of such globally respected scientists whom I greatly admire,” said Prof. Lee. “More importantly, this award validates research into brain somatic mutations as an important area of exploration to help patients suffering from devastating and untreatable neurological disorders.”
Prof. Lee also is the Director of the National Creative Research Initiative Center for Brain Somatic Mutations, and Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of SoVarGen, a biopharmaceutical company aiming to discover novel therapeutics and diagnosis for intractable central nervous system (CNS) diseases caused by low-level somatic mutation.
The Innovators in Science Award is a limited submission competition in which research universities, academic institutions, government or non-profit institutions, or equivalent from around the globe with a well-established record of scientific excellence are invited to nominate their most promising Early-Career Scientists and their most outstanding Senior Scientists working in one of four selected therapeutic fields of neuroscience, gastroenterology, oncology, and regenerative medicine. The 2020 Winners will be honored at the virtual Innovators in Science Award Ceremony and Symposium in October 2020.
2020.07.09 View 9771 -
Education, a Silver Lining in the Dark COVID-19 Cloud
If there is a silver lining behind the COVID-19 pandemic clouds engulfing the world in darkness, it would be ‘education’. The disruption caused by the pandemic has reminded us of the skills that students need in this unpredictable world and raised public awareness of guaranteeing continuous, fair, and quality learning opportunities. Educational innovation can become a positive and powerful catalyst to transform the world for a better future in the post-COVID era.
According to the speakers at the virtual forum co-hosted by the Global Strategy Institute (GSI) and Korea Policy Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (KPC4IR) at KAIST on June 24, the recent transition to remote education amplifies the existing socio-economic disparities between the haves and the have-nots, and narrowing the digital divide is the most urgent challenge that should be addressed in this ever-evolving technology-dominating era. They also called for students to be resilient despite the numerous uncertainties ahead of them and prepare new skill sets to better adjust to new environments.
KAIST launched the GSI as its think tank in February of this year. The GSI aims to identify global issues proactively and help make breakthroughs well aligned with solid science and technology-based policies. The second forum of the KAIST GSI, following its inaugural forum in April, was held under the theme “Envisioning the Future of Education for a Non-Contact Society in the Post-Coronavirus Era”.
In his opening remarks, KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin stressed that “distance teaching and learning will eventually become integral components of our future education system”. He then called for close collaboration between the public and private sectors to better shape the future of digital education. President Shin said that global cooperation is also needed to continue offering inclusive, quality education that can equally benefit every student around the world. “We should never let a crisis go to waste, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no exception,” he added.
CEO of Minerva Schools Ben Nelson described the current coronavirus crisis as “an earthquake happening deep down on the ocean floor – we don’t feel it, but it can cause a devastating tsunami.” He continued, “Online learning can totally change the current education system forever.”
Saying that blended education, which combines online and offline classes, will be the new norm in the post-coronavirus era, Coursera CEO Jeff Maggioncalda anticipates that institutions will have to offer more and more online courses and credentials, and should at the same time prepare to drive down the cost of education as students expect to pay much less in tuition and fees for online learning options. “With the economy slumping and unemployment soaring, job-relevant education will also be a must,” Maggioncalda said.
National University of Singapore President Tan Eng Chye further pointed out that future education systems should prepare students to be creative lifelong learners. President Tan encouraged students to be able to integrate knowledge and technical skills from multiple disciplines for complex problem solving, and be adaptable and resilient with bigger appetites for risks and a higher tolerance for failures. He also mentioned digital competency, empathy, and social responsibility as virtues that students in the post-coronavirus era should possess.
Rebecca Winthrop, Co-Director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, raised concerns over the ever-growing digital disparities caused by the recent shift to online teaching and learning, claiming that insufficient infrastructures for low-income families in developing nations are already causing added educational disparities and provoking the inequity issue around the world. “New approaches to leapfrog inequality and provide quality education equally through faster and more effective means should be studied,” she said.
In response to this, Vice President of Microsoft Anthony Salcito introduced the Microsoft Education Transformation Framework, which provides practical advice to develop strategies for digital education transformation with a holistic, long-term view implemented in discrete phases that the global community can begin today. The Framework reportedly shows how emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, support new approaches to building efficient and effective physical and digital infrastructure, modernizing teaching and learning, empowering research, and managing student success.
The GSI will host two more forums in September and November.
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2020.06.24 View 13616 -
KAIST Forum Envisions Education in the Post-Covid Era
Global leaders including the CEOs of Minerva and Coursera to join the KAIST online forum to discuss how to facilitate inclusive educational environment amidst the ever-growing digital disparities
An international forum hosted by the KAIST Global Strategy Institute will examine how the disruptions caused by the global pandemic will impact the future of education. Global leaders will reflect on ways to better facilitate inclusive educational environments and mitigate the digital divide, especially in an era where non-contact environments are so critical.
The online forum to be held on June 24 from 09:00 am KST will livestream on YouTube and KTV. This is the second forum hosted by the GSI following its inaugural forum in April.
Minerva School’s CEO Ben Nelson and Coursera CEO Jeff Maggioncalda will be among the 15 speakers who will share their insights on the new transformations in the education sector.
The digital transformation of higher education will be the key topic every speaker will highlight to predict the future education in the post-Covid era. According to UNESCO and UNICEF, 1.6 billion students from 192 countries, which account for 91 percent of the student population in the world, have experienced educational disruptions in the past four months. Approximately 29 percent of the youth worldwide, around 346 million individuals, are not online.
KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin’s opening remarks will stress that technological breakthroughs should be used to benefit us all and the private and public sectors should collaborate to facilitate an inclusive educational environment.
Ben Nelson believes that global universities are at the point of inflection for making tough choices to reform higher education. He will introduce what will affect the decision-making procedure for investing in the digital transformation and the best recipe for building a successful remote learning environment.
Dr. Paul Kim, CTO and Assistant Dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education, will analyze the ramifications brought about by Covid-19 among both advanced countries and developing countries, and propose an optimal educational model for developing countries.
Phil Baty, Chief Knowledge Officer at Times Higher Education, will present the key survey results the Times Higher Education made with approximately 200 university presidents on how higher education will adapt in the years to come.
As for innovation in higher education, Vice President at Microsoft Anthony Salcito and Professor Tae Eog Lee from the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at KAIST will discuss the education innovation solutions they are currently working on and how their projects will continue to develop.
National University of Singapore President Tan Eng Chye will also opine on how education could be more accessible. He will share what is exacerbating educational inequity and how to ensure an inclusive learning environment.
The second session will cover how to cope with the digital inequity.
Director General at the Ministry of Science and ICT Sang Wook Kang will explain the unavoidable online transition that is required to address the educational disruptions. He will also share his ideas on how this crisis can be leveraged to advance the educational environment.
Meanwhile, Rebecca Winthrop, senior fellow and co-director for universal education at Brooking Institution, and Sooinn Lee, CEO and Creative Lead of Enuma, will present on how to reduce the educational disparity during the un-contact era.
Director Joung-Ho Kim at the GSI, who is the organizer of the forum, said that KAIST has been the forerunner in the educational innovation. He hopes that this online forum will provide meaningful momentum to reshape the future of education by addressing the challenges and disruptions this pandemic has caused.
URL Link to Live-Streaming Service: https://www.youtube.com/c/KAISTofficial
2020.06.22 View 11159 -
Professor Alice Haeyun Oh to Join GPAI Expert Group
Professor Alice Haeyun Oh will participate in the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), an international and multi-stakeholder initiative hosted by the OECD to guide the responsible development and use of AI. In collaboration with partners and international organizations, GPAI will bring together leading experts from industry, civil society, government, and academia.
The Korean Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) officially announced that South Korea will take part in GPAI as one of the 15 founding members that include Canada, France, Japan, and the United States.
Professor Oh has been appointed as a new member of the Responsible AI Committee, one of the four committees that GPAI established along with the Data Governance Committee, Future of Work Committee, and Innovation and Commercialization Committee.
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2020.06.22 View 8195 -
Research on the Million Follower Fallacy Receives the Test of Time Award
Professor Meeyoung Cha’s research investigating the correlation between the number of followers on social media and its influence was re-highlighted after 10 years of publication of the paper.
Saying that her research is still as relevant today as the day it was published 10 years ago, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) presented Professor Cha from the School of Computing with the Test of Time Award during the 14th International Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM) held online June 8 through 11.
In her 2010 paper titled ‘Measuring User Influence in Twitter: The Million Follower Fallacy,’ Professor Cha proved that number of followers does not match the influential power. She investigated the data including 54,981,152 user accounts, 1,963,263,821 social links, and 1,755,925,520 Tweets, collected with 50 servers.
The research compares and illustrates the limitations of various methods used to measure the influence a user has on a social networking platform. These results provided new insights and interpretations to the influencer selection algorithm used to maximize the advertizing impact on big social networking platforms.
The research also looked at how long an influential user was active for, and whether the user could freely cross the borders between fields and be influential on different topics as well. By analyzing cases of who becomes an influencer when new events occur, it was shown that a person could quickly become an influencer using several key tactics, unlike what was previously claimed by the ‘accidental influential theory’.
Professor Cha explained, “At the time, data from social networking platforms did not receive much attention in computer science, but I remember those all-nighters I pulled to work on this project, fascinated by the fact that internet data could be used to solve difficult social science problems. I feel so grateful that my research has been endeared for such a long time.”
Professor Cha received both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from KAIST, and conducted this research during her postdoctoral course at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. She now also serves as a chief investigator of a data science group at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS).
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2020.06.22 View 7152 -
Professor Jee-Hwan Ryu Receives IEEE ICRA 2020 Outstanding Reviewer Award
Professor Jee-Hwan Ryu from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering was selected as this year’s winner of the Outstanding Reviewer Award presented by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers International Conference on Robotics and Automation (IEEE ICRA). The award ceremony took place on June 5 during the conference that is being held online May 31 through August 31 for three months.
The IEEE ICRA Outstanding Reviewer Award is given every year to the top reviewers who have provided constructive and high-quality thesis reviews, and contributed to improving the quality of papers published as results of the conference.
Professor Ryu was one of the four winners of this year’s award. He was selected from 9,425 candidates, which was approximately three times bigger than the candidate pool in previous years. He was strongly recommended by the editorial committee of the conference.
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2020.06.10 View 8845 -
Professor Dongsu Han Named Program Chair for ACM CoNEXT 2020
Professor Dongsu Han from the School of Electrical Engineering has been appointed as the program chair for the 16th Association for Computing Machinery’s International Conference on emerging Networking EXperiments and Technologies (ACM CoNEXT 2020). Professor Han is the first program chair to be appointed from an Asian institution.
ACM CoNEXT is hosted by ACM SIGCOMM, ACM's Special Interest Group on Data Communications, which specializes in the field of communication and computer networks.
Professor Han will serve as program co-chair along with Professor Anja Feldmann from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics. Together, they have appointed 40 world-leading researchers as program committee members for this conference, including Professor Song Min Kim from KAIST School of Electrical Engineering.
Paper submissions for the conference can be made by the end of June, and the event itself is to take place from the 1st to 4th of December.
Conference Website: https://conferences2.sigcomm.org/co-next/2020/#!/home
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2020.06.02 View 10057 -
KAIST Elected to Universities Space Research Association Membership
KAIST joined the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) on May 4, and brought the Association to a total of 113 member universities. The expertise KAIST brings will broaden the Association’s collective strength in space-related science, technology, and engineering worldwide. Professor Hyosang Yoon from the Department of Aerospace Engineering will serve as the representative of KAIST to USRA.
KAIST was selected by USRA’s current university members, in recognition of its significant commitment in, and contributions to, the fields of space and aerospace research. Especially, KAIST have developed Korea's first satellite, KITSAT-1 in 1992, which paved the way for space research in Korea and helped the nation strengthen technological competitiveness in that field.
USRA was established in 1969 under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the United States. It is a non-profit corporation chartered to advance space-related science, technology, and engineering. USRA operates scientific institutes and facilities, and conducts other major research and educational programs, using federal funding. USRA also engages the university community and employs in-house scientific leadership, innovative research and development, and project management expertise.
USRA’s President and CEO Dr. Jeffrey A. Isaacson said in his announcement, “We are delighted to welcome these two renowned universities as members. We look forward to their active engagement with, and contributions to, our Association.” President Isaacson visited KAIST on December 10 last year to discuss possible collaborations between two organizations.
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2020.05.29 View 7170 -
Professor Sue-Hyun Lee Listed Among WEF 2020 Young Scientists
Professor Sue-Hyun Lee from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering joined the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Young Scientists Community on May 26. The class of 2020 comprises 25 leading researchers from 14 countries across the world who are at the forefront of scientific problem-solving and social change. Professor Lee was the only Korean on this year’s roster.
The WEF created the Young Scientists Community in 2008 to engage leaders from the public and private sectors with science and the role it plays in society. The WEF selects rising-star academics, 40 and under, from various fields every year, and helps them become stronger ambassadors for science, especially in tackling pressing global challenges including cybersecurity, climate change, poverty, and pandemics.
Professor Lee is researching how memories are encoded, recalled, and updated, and how emotional processes affect human memory, in order to ultimately direct the development of therapeutic methods to treat mental disorders. She has made significant contributions to resolving ongoing debates over the maintenance and changes of memory traces in the brain.
In recognition of her research excellence, leadership, and commitment to serving society, the President and the Dean of the College of Engineering at KAIST nominated Professor Lee to the WEF’s Class of 2020 Young Scientists Selection Committee. The Committee also acknowledged Professor Lee’s achievements and potential for expanding the boundaries of knowledge and practical applications of science, and accepted her into the Community.
During her three-year membership in the Community, Professor Lee will be committed to participating in WEF-initiated activities and events related to promising therapeutic interventions for mental disorders and future directions of artificial intelligence.
Seven of this year’s WEF Young Scientists are from Asia, including Professor Lee, while eight are based in Europe. Six study in the Americas, two work in South Africa, and the remaining two in the Middle East. Fourteen, more than half, of the newly announced 25 Young Scientists are women.
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2020.05.26 View 11804 -
Professor Tek-jin Nam Elected to DSR Int’l Advisory Council
Professor Tek-jin Nam from the Department of Industrial Design was elected to serve on the first International Advisory Council (IAC) of the Design Research Society (DRS).
The DRS, an academic society in the field of design research, was founded in the UK in 1966 with the mission of developing and promoting design research. The IAC is newly established under the new DRS governance structure, and its members are selected from distinguished design researchers recommended by DRS members around the globe.
The new IAC members will carry out various activities offered by the DRS, which include innovating design research, strengthening the design researchers’ network and developing policies to nurture new researchers.
2020.05.22 View 5480 -
Professor Youngchul Kim Joins Presidential Commission on Architecture Policy
Professor Youngchul Kim from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who is also the Director of the Smart City Research Center at KAIST, was appointed as a commissioner of the 6th Presidential Commission on Architecture Policy on May 19. Professor Kim will contribute to coordinating and deliberating national architecture and urban development policies. He will serve a two-year term beginning this month.
The Presidential Commission on Architecture Policy is made up of 30 commissioners. Nineteen members, including Professor Kim, are experts from the private sector, and the rest include the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, the Minister for Environment, and other government officials. The non-governmental commissioners represent a diverse mixture of genders, ages, and regions for the balanced development of the nation.
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2020.05.21 View 6807 -
Antivirus Industry the Centerpiece of New Deal R&D Initiatives
- KAIST launches post-COVID-19 R&D initiatives for smart mobile medical systems. -
KAIST will make the antivirus industry the centerpiece of what it is touting as the KAIST New Deal R&D initiative, which will drive new growth engines for preparing for the post-coronavirus era.
According to the new initiative, KAIST will concentrate on creating antivirus technologies, infectious disease-related big data management, and non-contact services platforms as key future R&D projects.
President Sung-Chul Shin launched the COVID-19 R&D Initiative task force last month, composed of more than 50 professors from the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering, the Department of Biological Sciences, the College of Engineering, and the Department of Industrial Design. The task force came up with key research agendas that will promote smart mobile medical systems in the years ahead.
“We will devote all of our R&D capacities to pursue a smart healthcare society,” said President Shin. “Our competitiveness in the fields of AI, ICT, materials, and bio-technology holds significant potential for building a healthy society powered by smart medical systems in Korea,” he added.
The smart medical systems focus mainly on building an Epidemic Mitigating Mobile Module (EMMM). The EMMM will manage epidemics via the three phases of prevention, emergency response, and treatment, with the development of each phase’s technological modules. The EMMM will also build an AI big data platform to assist with clinical applications and epidemic management.
Technologies applicable for the prevention phase include developing recyclable antivirus masks, plasma virus sterilizers, and smart breathable protective gowns. KAIST researchers will also focus on developing diagnosis modules that will identify epidemics more quickly and accurately.
Most significantly, KAIST aims to develop technologies for anti-infection medical services such as the transformable negative pressure ambulance module and negative pressure room, which are specially developed for respiratory infections.
The new R&D initiatives will center on virus therapies and treatments, specifically pushing forward vaccine and robotics studies. As caring robots and delivery robots will become common as main caregivers via noncontact services, research focusing on robotics will be significantly enhanced.
Even before launching the new R&D initiatives, researchers have started to present new technologies to help address the pandemic. Professor Il-Doo Kim’s team in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering developed a washable nano-fiber filtered face mask that is preparing for commercialization.
GPS tracking of infections has expanded comprehensively to detect both indoor and outdoor activities of infected patients. Professor Dong-Soo Han from the School of Computing developed Wi-Fi positioning software built into mobile phones that can trace both activities and is now preparing to roll it out.
Virologist Ui-Cheol Shin from the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering is carrying out research on a universal T-cell vaccine that can block the Betacoronaviruses. It is reported that that new epidemics such as SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 carry Betacoronaviruses.
Research teams in the Graduate School of AI are conducting various research projects on building prediction models for outbreaks and spreads using big data.
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2020.05.20 View 12242