Campus/People
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Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee Honored with the 23rd NAEK Award
(Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering was honored to be the laureate of the 23rd NAEK Award.
The NAEK (National Academy of Engineering of Korea) Award was instituted in 1997 to honor and recognize engineers who have made significant contributions to the development of the engineering and technology field at universities, industries, and institutions. Every year, it is conferred to only one person who has achieved original and world-leading research that has led to national development.
Distinguished Professor Lee is a pioneering scholar of the field of systems metabolic engineering and he was recognized for his significant achievements in the biochemical industry by developing novel microbial bioprocesses. In particular, he is globally renowned for biological plastic synthesis, making or decomposing polymers with microorganisms instead of using fossil resources.
He has produced numerous high-quality research breakthroughs in metabolic and systems engineering. In 2016, he produced an easily degradable plastic with Escherichia coli (E. coli). In 2018, he successfully produced aromatic polyesters, the main material for PET (poly ethylene terephthalate) from E. coli strains. He also identified microorganism structures for PET degradation and improved its degradability with a novel variant.
His research was ranked number one in the research and development division of Top Ten Science and Technology News 2018 announced by Korean Federation of Science & Technology Societies. He is one of highly cited researchers (HCR) ranked in the top 1% by citations for their field by the Clarivate Analytics.
2019.03.21 View 6962 -
The Future Mobility of the Year 2019
KAIST announced the Future Mobility of the Year (FMOTY) 2019. The winners are Volvo 360C, Toyota e-Palette, and Toyota Concept-i WALK.
FMOTY are the first awards that recognizes concept cars that exhibit innovative services and practical transportation technology in three categories: private mobility, public and commercial mobility, and personal mobility.
Figure 1. The winner in the private mobility division, the Volvo 360C
In the private mobility division, the award went to the Volvo 360C. With targeted routes of roughly 186 miles, this vehicle has an ambitious service goal to replace airplanes by traveling these routes with great comfort. Goro Okazaki, a journalist with Car and Driver Japan, said, “The Volvo 360C clearly shows how highly personalized autonomous driving can change the future.”
Figure 2. The winner in the public mobility division, the Toyota e-Palette
The Toyota e-Palette was the winning car in commercial mobility division. This vehicle provides the best solution as a mobile service platform by transforming itself into mobile hospitals, hotels, stores and food trucks. Carlo Calderón, a journalist for Autopista Spain, said, “It has a great strength in remodeling its indoor and outdoor spaces according to various commercial uses.”
Figure 3. The winner in the personal mobility division, the Toyota Concept-i WALK
In the personal mobility division, the award went to the Toyota Concept-i WALK. It was recognized for having an exquisite user environment and artificial intelligent agent, along with an excellent completion. Jun Miao, a journalist with MJ CarShow China, said, “It is aesthetically pleasing. Beyond the upright control of conventional personal mobility, it allows agile control with a joystick.”
FMOTY conducted a screening process for 45 concept cars over three months and 16 renowned automotive experts from 11 countries participated as judges for this award, including Editor in Chief of BBC Top Gear Magazine Charlie Turner and European Bureau Chief of Automobile Magazine Georg Kacher. The judges said that FMOTY was born to propose a new aspect of future mobility, and in terms of evaluating technical and social values of concept cars, FMOTY carries great significance.
Kyung-soo Kim, Dean of the Cho Chun Shik Graduate School of Green Transportation said, “Globally renowned experts in the automotive field participated as judges to elevate the prestige and fairness of the awards. KAIST members were excluded from the entire judging process. I believe that the FMOTY Awards will expand public attention from the present to the future.”
Details can be found on the official website of FMOTY ( www.fmoty.org ).
2019.03.11 View 5715 -
Brain-inspired Artificial Intelligence in Robots
(from left: PhD candidate Su Jin An, Dr. Jee Hang Lee and Professor Sang Wan Lee)
Research groups in KAIST, the University of Cambridge, Japan’s National Institute for Information and Communications Technology, and Google DeepMind argue that our understanding of how humans make intelligent decisions has now reached a critical point in which robot intelligence can be significantly enhanced by mimicking strategies that the human brain uses when we make decisions in our everyday lives.
In our rapidly changing world, both humans and autonomous robots constantly need to learn and adapt to new environments. But the difference is that humans are capable of making decisions according to the unique situations, whereas robots still rely on predetermined data to make decisions.
Despite the rapid progress being made in strengthening the physical capability of robots, their central control systems, which govern how robots decide what to do at any one time, are still inferior to those of humans. In particular, they often rely on pre-programmed instructions to direct their behavior, and lack the hallmark of human behavior, that is, the flexibility and capacity to quickly learn and adapt.
Applying neuroscience in robotics, Professor Sang Wan Lee from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST and Professor Ben Seymour from the University of Cambridge and Japan’s National Institute for Information and Communications Technology proposed a case in which robots should be designed based on the principles of the human brain. They argue that robot intelligence can be significantly enhanced by mimicking strategies that the human brain uses during decision-making processes in everyday life.
The problem with importing human-like intelligence into robots has always been a difficult task without knowing the computational principles for how the human brain makes decisions –in other words, how to translate brain activity into computer code for the robots’ ‘brains’.
However, researchers now argue that, following a series of recent discoveries in the field of computational neuroscience, there is enough of this code to effectively write it into robots. One of the examples discovered is the human brain’s ‘meta-controller’, a mechanism by which the brain decides how to switch between different subsystems to carry out complex tasks. Another example is the human pain system, which allows them to protect themselves in potentially hazardous environments. “Copying the brain’s code for these could greatly enhance the flexibility, efficiency, and safety of robots,” Professor Lee said.
The team argued that this inter-disciplinary approach will provide just as many benefits to neuroscience as to robotics. The recent explosion of interest in what lies behind psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, depression, and addiction has given rise to a set of sophisticated theories that are complex and difficult to test without some sort of advanced situation platform.
Professor Seymour explained, “We need a way of modelling the human brain to find how it interacts with the world in real-life to test whether and how different abnormalities in these models give rise to certain disorders. For instance, if we could reproduce anxiety behavior or obsessive-compulsive disorder in a robot, we could then predict what we need to do to treat it in humans.”
The team expects that producing robot models of different psychiatric disorders, in a similar way to how researchers use animal models now, will become a key future technology in clinical research.
The team also stated that there may also be other benefits to humans and intelligent robots learning, acting, and behaving in the same way. In future societies in which humans and robots live and work amongst each other, the ability to cooperate and empathize with robots might be much greater if we feel they think like us.
Professor Seymour said, “We might think that having robots with the human traits of being a bit impulsive or overcautious would be a detriment, but these traits are an unavoidable by-product of human-like intelligence. And it turns out that this is helping us to understand human behavior as human.”
The framework for achieving this brain-inspired artificial intelligence was published in two journals, Science Robotics (10.1126/scirobotics.aav2975) on January 16 and Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences (10.1016/j.cobeha.2018.12.012) on February 6, 2019.
Figure 1. Overview of neuroscience - robotics approach for decision-making. The figure details key areas for interdisciplinary study (Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences)
Figure 2. Brain-inspired solutions to robot learning. Neuroscientific views on various aspects of learning and cognition converge and create a new idea called prefrontal metacontrol, which can inspire researchers to design learning agents that can address various key challenges in robotics such as performance-efficiency-speed, cooperation-competition, and exploration-exploitation trade-offs (Science Robotics)
2019.02.20 View 5506 -
Kimchi Toolkit by Costa Rican Summa Cum Laude Helps Make the Best Flavor
(Maria Jose Reyes Castro with her kimchi toolkit application)
Every graduate feels a special attachment to their school, but for Maria Jose Reyes Castro who graduated summa cum laude in the Department of Industrial Design this year, KAIST will be remembered for more than just academics. She appreciates KAIST for not only giving her great professional opportunities, but also helping her find the love of her life.
During her master’s course, she completed an electronic kimchi toolkit, which optimizes kimchi’s flavor. Her kit uses a mobile application and smart sensor to find the fermentation level of kimchi by measuring its pH level, which is closely related to its fermentation. A user can set a desired fermentation level or salinity on the mobile application, and it provides the best date to serve it.
Under the guidance of Professor Daniel Saakes, she conducted research on developing a kimchi toolkit for beginners (Qualified Kimchi: Improving the experience of inexperienced kimchi makers by developing a monitoring toolkit for kimchi).
“I’ve seen many foreigners saying it’s quite difficult to make kimchi. So I chose to study kimchi to help people, especially those who are first-experienced making kimchi more easily,” she said. She got recipes from YouTube and studied fermentation through academic journals. She also asked kimchi experts to have a more profound understanding of it.
Extending her studies, she now works for a startup specializing in smart farms after starting last month. She conducts research on biology and applies it to designs that can be used practically in daily life.
Her tie with KAIST goes back to 2011 when she attended an international science camp in Germany. She met Sunghan Ro (’19 PhD in Nanoscience and Technology), a student from KAIST and now her husband. He recommended for her to enroll at KAIST because the school offers an outstanding education and research infrastructure along with support for foreign students.
At that time, Castro had just begun her first semester in electrical engineering at the University of Costa Rica, but she decided to apply to KAIST and seek a better opportunity in a new environment. One year later, she began her fresh start at KAIST in the fall semester of 2012.
Instead of choosing her original major, electrical engineering, she decided to pursue her studies in the Department of Industrial Design, because it is an interdisciplinary field where students get to study design while learning business models and making prototypes.
She said, “I felt encouraged by my professors and colleagues in my department to be creative and follow my passion. I never regret entering this major.”
When Castro was pursuing her master’s program in the same department, she became interested in interaction designs with food and biological designs by Professor Saakes, who is her advisor specializing in these areas.
After years of following her passion in design, she now graduates with academic honors in her department.
It is a bittersweet moment to close her journey at KAIST, but “I want to thank KAIST for the opportunity to change my life for the better. I also thank my parents for being supportive and encouraging me. I really appreciate the professors from the Department of Industrial Design who guided and shaped who I am,” she said.
Figure 1. The concept of the kimchi toolkit
Figure 2. The scenario of the kimchi toolkit
2019.02.19 View 4554 -
KAIST 2019 Commencement at a Glance
(KAIST 2019 Commencement Ceremony)
This year, KAIST awarded a total of 2,705 degrees: 654 PhD degrees, 1,255 master’s degrees, and 796 bachelor’s degrees. Including this year’s numbers, KAIST has conferred a total of 63,830 degrees since its foundation in 1971.
Parents, family, and friends came to campus to congratulate the graduates with big smiles and hugs. Faculty and staff members also attended the ceremony to celebrate their graduation. This year, distinguished guests including National Assembly Member Kyung-Jin Kim and Vice Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation Dae-sik came to celebrate the day with the KAIST community.
During the commencement, KAIST also announced the recipients of its undergraduate academic awards. The Minister of Science and ICT Award was won by Do-Yoon Kim from the Department of Aerospace Engineering, the KAIST Board of Trustee Chairperson Award went to Se-rin Lee from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the KAIST Presidential Award was won by Hee-Ju Kim from the Department of Physics, the KAIST Alumni Association President Award went to Hyeon-Seong Park from the School of Electrical Engineering, and finally the KAIST Development Foundation Chairperson Award was won by Gyeong-Hoon Lee from the Department of Mathematical Sciences.
This year’s valedictorian Eun-Seok Jeong from the School of Computing said, “I believe that we are able to stand here today because we challenged ourselves to confront our shortcomings and our uncertainty. If we continue to develop, we will become a better person than we were yesterday.”
(KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin and Woo-Seok Jeong, '19 PhD in Aerospace Engineering)
As a KAIST alumnus and fellow scientist, President Sung-Chul Shin offered his congratulations and emphasized that graduates should continue to pursue the C³ spirit. “In this age of great transformation, embrace challenges and exercise creativity as you have learnt through your education and research at KAIST. And keep in mind the importance of caring for others. Please remember that challenge and creativity will have more meaning if rendered with a caring spirit,” he said.
2019.02.15 View 8636 -
The First Award for Concept Cars, Future Mobility of the Year
KAIST will host an award to recognize the most visionary and inspiring concept cars of the year.
The ‘Future Mobility of the Year (FMOTY)’ Awards recognize concept cars that have made outstanding contributions to future mobility. The first awards ceremony will take place in Korea in March 2019.
The awards will be given to concept cars that exhibit innovative services and practical transportation technology in three categories: private mobility, public and commercial mobility, and personal mobility.
To ensure a fair judging process, the contest invited influential and eminent journalists in the automotive field. They will evaluate the social values and innovative contributions of the concept cars that will pave the way for next-generation transportation.
Concept cars have been neglected in existing automobile awards, such as the ‘Car of the Year’ because they have been considered experimental prototypes only built for showcasing a new vision for the quite far future.
The FMOTY Awards will brings concept cars back into the spotlight and showcase the best ideas and social values of mind-blowing concept cars.
Among 45 concept cars, fifteen candidates were selected as finalists after the initial screening that took place over the last three months: including models from Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot, Porsche, Renault, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Volvo. The winners will be announced and awarded in Seoul on March 28th.
Kyung-soo Kim, Dean of the Cho Chun Shik Graduate School of Green Transportation which organizes the award said, “As the automobile industry undergoes an era of transformation, it is crucial to recognize the efforts of automobile companies who are making attempts to create novel forms of mobility. That is why we launched the FMOTY Awards, hoping to add a future-oriented spirit to the existing awards that consider finished vehicles only. By selecting the best concept car, the FMOTY Awards will expand public attention from the present to the future.”
Details can be found on the official website of FMOTY ( www.fmoty.org), where photos of the finalists are also available for download ( http://bitly.kr/JTUUp).
Figure 1. Finalists for the 'Future Mobility of the Year'
2019.02.13 View 6258 -
Kenya-KAIST Kicks off with a 95-Million USD Funding from the Korean Government
KAIST, founded through a six-million USD loan from USAID in 1971, to provide turnkey-based education consultancy for Kenya’s first advanced science and technology institute.
KAIST and the Konza Technopolis Development Authority (KoTDA) announced the official establishment of Kenya-KAIST by 2021 during a kickoff ceremony on February 12 in Kenya. The KAIST delegation headed by President Sung-Chul Shin and Kenyan cabinet members and dignitaries including Minister of Education Amina Mohamed, the Chairman of the KoTDA Reuben Mutiso, and the CEO of KoTDA John Tanui attended the ceremony.
With this kickoff held at Konza Technopolis Malili, KAIST, the first and top science and technology university in Korea, will participate in Kenya’s strategic economic development plan with the provision of a turnkey-based science and technology education consultancy for the establishment of Kenya’s first advanced institute of science and technology. KAIST, which won preferred bidder status in consortium with Samwoo and Sunjin architecture and engineering companies, signed the contract with the KoTDA last November.
Korea Eximbank will offer a 95-million USD economic development cooperation fund loan to the Kenyan government. The campus will be constructed in the Konza Techno City located near Nairobi by 2021, with the first batch of 200 graduate students starting classes in 2022.
KAIST will develop academic curricula for six initial departments (Mechanical Engineering, Electrical/Electronic Engineering, ICT Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, and Agricultural Biotechnology), which will lay the groundwork for engineering research and education in Kenya to meet emerging socioeconomic demands. In addition, KAIST will provide education in the basic science areas of math, physics, chemistry, and biology for students.
The Kenyan government plans to transform Kenya into a middle-income country under Vision 2030 through the promotion of science, technology, and innovation for national economic growth. Nicknamed Africa’s Silicon Savannah, Konza Techno City is a strategic science and technology hub constructed to realize this vision. To this end, the medium-term plan set a goal to provide specialized research and training in various cutting-edge engineering and advanced science fields.
It is also notable that the Kenyan government asked to develop an industry-academy cooperation program in the Konza Techno City. This reflects the high expectations for Kenya-KAIST and its role as a growth engine in the center of the Konza Technopolis. It is anticipated that the technopolis will create 16,675 jobs in the medium term and over 200,000 upon completion, positioning Kenya as an ICT hub within the region.
Saying that the partnership through Kenya-KAIST will bring a new future to Kenya as well as KAIST at the ceremony, President Shin reflected that the project will be a significant milestone for KAIST’s history and global competitiveness. He added, “With this Kenya project, we come to share the past, present, and future of KAIST. And I am very pleased to celebrate our shared vision: the empowerment of science, technology, and education.”
In particular, President Shin was accompanied by Dr. Kun-Mo Chung, a founding provost who served as the Minister of Science and Technology in Korea twice. He now serves as an advisor to Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Dr. Chung had played a crucial role in securing a six-million USD loan from US AID to the Korean government to establish KAIST in 1971. He proposed the idea to establish an advanced science and technology institute in Korea to Dr. John Hannah, then the director of US AID.
The seed that was sowed five decades ago in Korea by Dr. Chung has now fully bloomed in Kenya. In only a half century, KAIST has become a donor institution that passes on science and technology education systems including the construction of campuses to developing countries.
KAIST has been acclaimed as US AID’s most successful foreign aid project. A report from the National Academy of Sciences in the US described KAIST as an exemplary case in which a former recipient of international aid has grown to become a science, technology and innovation leader.
The kickoff of Kenya-KAIST drew the attention of both media and local universities in Kenya, attesting to their strong interest to drive economic growth through advanced science and technology.
The University of Nairobi also hosted a special lecture by President Shin, asking him to share the recipe for the success of KAIST in Korea. In a lecture titled “A Crucial Engine for Rapid National Development,” President Shin presented the vision, innovation, and passion of the Korean people that led to the phenomenal results we can see today.
The successful case of KAIST has been benchmarked by many countries for years. For instance, KAIST set up the curriculum for the nuclear engineering program at the Khalifa University of Science and Technology in UAE in 2010. Since 2015, Chongquing University of Technology in China has been running its electrical engineering and computer science programs based on the educational systems and curricula offered by KAIST.
Last October, KAIST also signed an MOU with the Prince Mohammad Bin Salman College of Cyber Security, AI, and Advanced Technologies in Saudi Arabia to provide the undergraduate program for robotics.
Among all these programs benchmarking KAIST, Kenya-KAIST clearly stands out, as it carries out a turnkey-based project that encompasses every aspect of institution building, ranging from educational curricular development to campus construction and supervision.
Figure 1. KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin and Principal Secretary of Ministry of Education Collette A. Suda
Figure 2. Kickoff Ceremony of Kenya-KAIST
Figure 3. Conceptual image of Kenya KAIST
2019.02.13 View 6878 -
KAIST Earns AACSB Business School Accreditation
The KAIST College of Business re-earned business school accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International. The school first earned the accreditation in 2003, and has continued to receive the accreditation four consecutive times. Currently only 5% of the 16,000 business schools around the world have earned AACSB accreditation. KAIST received a good evaluation for the competitive research of its faculty, its executive education programs based on strong industry-academia ties, and specialized MBA and master’s program, which includes programs such as social entrepreneurship and green business and policy.Alexander Triantis, dean of the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and a judge for AACSB Accreditation said, “I was impressed to see students from KAIST have a high standard of knowledge. A number of its graduates continue to be appointed as professors of top universities abroad, which shows its strong global competence”. AACSB was founded in 1916 by deans of business colleges from prestigious universities such as Harvard University, Stanford University and Columbia University, to provide business and accounting accreditation to universities. Evaluation for AACSB accreditation takes place every five years. Schools are evaluated based on fifteen standards, including student admission and graduation requirements, student-faculty ratios, faculty’s intellectual contributions, research infrastructure, global cooperation, and industry-academia programs. They can be eligible for re-accreditation if they satisfy the conditions offered by AACSB International and are committed to continuous improvement every five years. KAIST also earned the accreditation from the European Foundation for Management Development Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) three consecutive times since 2010. In 2013, it earned membership into the Partnership in International Management (PIM). Membership is only possible for those who have AACSB and EQUIS accreditation and they can be listed as a candidate school through voting. The candidate schools can finally earn membership after one year of strict screening. As of January 2019, there are 65 prestigious graduate schools of business, including KAIST, listed as PIM members.
2019.02.01 View 4983 -
KAIST and LG Electronics Team up for 6G Wireless Communications
(LG Electronics CTO Il-Pyung Park (left) and Dean of KAIST Institute Sang Yup Lee)
KAIST and LG Electronics are working together to take the lead in next-generation wireless communications and launched the LG-KAIST 6G Research Center on January 28, 2019.
KAIST Institute has been focusing on developing a new growth engine for the national economy through interdisciplinary research. In particular, its research work in the field of next-generation wireless communication was listed in the National Research and Development Excellence 100 in 2016 and 2017.
LG Electronics has been a global leader in this field for many years. According to TechIPM, the company had the most 4G LTE/LTE-A patents from 2012 to 2016. Also, it first standardized the Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything, which is the core technology for autonomous vehicles.
The new head of the research center, Professor Dong Ho Cho from the School of Electrical Engineering said, “We will work on developing source technology for sixth generation mobile communications, which will enhance national competence and prepare for the future industries.”
CTO of LG Electronics Il-Pyung Park said, “We are hoping to take the lead in the global standardization of sixth generation wireless communications and secure new business opportunities.”
2019.01.29 View 2259 -
President Shin Speaks on Closing the Skills Gap at the WEF
(President Shin poses (far right) with the National University of Singapore President Tan Eng Chye (center) along with Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee in Davos last week.)
President Sung-Chul Shin shared his ideas on how reskilling is a critical element of growth, dynamism, and competitiveness for countries during a session titled “Closing the Skills Gap: Creating a Reskilling Revolution” at the World Economic Forum on January 24 in Davos.
While discussing a reskilling imperative alongside French Labor Minister Muriel Penicaud, he presented how the Korean government and KAIST are responding to the socio-economic transformation of workforces in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. After their presentation, Minister of Economy and Enterprise of Spain Nadia Calvirno Santamaria, Minister of Commerce and Industry of Oman Ali bin Masoud bin Ali Al Sunaidy, and Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Skill Development, and Entrepreneurship of India Dharmendra Pradhan shared their views on the course of decision making regarding the proactive practices and policies they have applied for closing the gaps from their countries’ perspectives.
President Shin presented how to upskill and reskill SMEs and startups, the real players who will jumpstart the economy in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. He explained that the government is striving to change the existing structure of the economy, which is dominated by a few giant conglomerates. He added that the Korean government is trying to support SMEs and startups in terms of both funding and technology reskilling in order to rejuvenate the economy.
To better align itself with the government’s efforts, KAIST has introduced SME 4.0. SME 4.0 proposes to innovate the production process through the creation of a partnered platform between KAIST and SMEs across the country. With this platform, KAIST assists local SMEs for standardizing and systemizing all their processes of production, delivery, and management with enterprise resources planning (ERP) and manufacturing execution systems (MES). In addition, SME 4.0 offers retraining and re-tooling programs by linking the data generated through this platform in real time to better facilitate SMEs’ smart business.
(President Shin shakes hands with H.E.Mohammed Al-Tuwairi, Minister of Economy and Planning of Saudi Arabia before holding a bilaterla meeting in Davos.)
President Shin also explained about upskilling the leading corporations’ technological competitiveness, partnering with major leading corporations for upskilling their advanced technologies.
He also held a series of bilateral meetings with dignitaries attending the WEF annual meeting to discuss partnerships and collaborations. He also attended the Global University Leaders Forum (GULF), a community composed of 28 presidents from the world’s top universities on January 23. President Shin, who is on the advisory board of the Center for Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR), also participated in the board meeting and discussed the upcoming launching of the Korea C4IR, which will open at KAIST in March.
2019.01.28 View 6192 -
First Korean Member of OceanObs' Organizing Committee
Professor Sung Yong Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering became the first Korean to be elected as an organizing committee member of the international conference OceanObs’19’, specializing in the ocean observing field.
Professor Kim has been actively engaged in advisory panels, technical committees, and working groups for the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES). Through numerous activities, he was recognized for his professionalism and academic achievements, which led him to be appointed as a member of the organizing committee.
The organizing committee is comprised of leading scholars and researchers from 20 countries, and Professor Kim will be the first Korean scientist to participate on the committee.
Since 1999, the conference has been held every decade. Global experts specializing in oceanic observation gather to discuss research directions for the next ten years by monitoring physical, biological, and chemical variables in regional, national, and global oceans and applying marine engineering.
This year, approximately 20 institutes including NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the European Space Agency will support funds as well as high-tech equipment to the conference.
This year’s conference theme is the governance of global ocean observing systems such as underwater gliders, unmanned vehicles, remote sensing, and observatories. The conference will hold discussions on monitoring technology and information systems to ensure human safety as well as to develop and preserve food resources. Additionally, participants will explore ways to expand observational infrastructures and carry out multidisciplinary approaches.
There will also be collaborations with the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO) to organize ocean observing programs and discuss priorities.
Finally, they will set a long-term plan for solving major scientific issues, such as climate change, ocean acidification, energy, and marine pollution.
Professor Kim said, “Based on the outcomes drawn from the conference, I will carry out research on natural disasters and climate change monitoring by using unmanned observing systems. I will also encourage more multidisciplinary research in this field.”
2019.01.25 View 9109 -
New Members of KAST and Y-KAST 2019
(Professor Eui-Cheol Shin from the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering)
Professor Eui-Cheol Shin from the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering became a new fellow of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) along with 25 other scientists in Korea. He is one of the top virus immunologists in Korea and has published a review article in Nature Reviews Immunology.
Meanwhile KAST selected and announced 26 young scientists under the age 43 who have shown great potential and the creativity to carry out next-generation research. The list of Y-KAST (Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology) includes six KAIST professors: Professor Ji Oon Lee from the Department of Mathematical Sciences, Professor Mi Hee Lim from the Department of Chemistry, Professor Shin-Hyun Kim from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Professor Jung-Ryul Lee from the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Professor Hyunjoo Jenny Lee from the School of Electrical Engineering, and Professor Yeon Sik Jung from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
KAST conferred their fellowships and Y-KAST membership during the New Year Reception.
2019.01.22 View 7631