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KAIST Names Three Distinguished Professors
KAIST Names Three Distinguished Professors
- Three professors having achieved world’s distinguished research and education performances- Special incentives and non full-time position after retirement age to be offered
KAIST (President Nam-Pyo Suh) has named three Distinguished Professors, the most honorable positions in KAIST, for the first time in its history.
The three professors are Choong-Ki Kim, Dep. of Computer Science, Sang-Yup Lee, Dep. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Kee-Joo Chang, Dep. of Physics.
Professor Kim has made significant contributions to the advancement of Korea’s semiconductor field. He developed and put into a practical use ‘CCD Imaging Element’, a core technology in the multimedia era and the most widely used imaging sensor, for the first time in the world. He also promoted special education programs with industrial bodies such as Samsung Electronics, Hynix Semiconductor, etc. to improve industry-academy cooperation programs of KAIST. In recent years, he is showing passionate activities for the development of KAIST, such as genius education, interdisciplinary education by the Graduate School of Culture Technology, and experiment education for undergraduate students. He received Hoam Prize in 1993 and the Order of Civil Merit Moran Medal in 1997, and is an IEEE fellow and the former Vice-president of KAIST.
Professor Lee has showed outstanding performances in the field of Metabolic Engineering. He discovered the genome sequences of bacteria for the first time in the world and published a paper regarding his discovery applied to metabolic engineering technologies at Nature Biotechnology in 2004. He also published a 78-page paper, evaluated as the bible of prteomics, at the 70 years long Microbiology and Molecular Biology Review (MMBR). His research performances are 187 domestic and international papers, 203 patent applications, Young Scientist Award, 212 invited lectures from home and abroad, etc.
Professor Chang has published about 200 papers in the field of Sold-State Physics and presented diverse theory models regarding semiconductor materials, his major research fields, at review articles, textbooks, academic conferences, etc. Particularly, he found out the essences of DX defects in GaAs semiconductors, a problem that had remained unsolved more than 10 years, and his paper on this has been cited so far more than 500 times. Professor Chang, named as one of the Nation’s Great Scholars in 2005, has 15 papers as cited more than 100 times and records the number of citation indexed by SCI at 4,847, third place among all scientists in Korea.
Distinguished Professors are the most honorable positions in KAIST, and only professors achieving world’s distinguished research and education performances can be Distinguished Professors. Being Distinguished Professors demands recommendations from President, Vice-president, Deans of College, and Department Heads and favorable evaluations by domestic and overseas professionals. Distinguished Professors will be offered special incentives and appointed as non full-time faculty even after their full retirement age.
KAIST will hire outstanding human resources in highly promising research fields through its novice systems including Distinguished Professors System, etc. to build and retain world’s best faculty.
2007.03.19 View 14384 -
Professor Seong-Ihl Woo Develops New High-Speed Research Method
Professor Seong-Ihl Woo Develops New High-Speed Research Method
Reduce research periods and expenses for thin film materials several ten times
Posted on the online version of Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) on January 9
A team led by Seong-Ihl Woo, a professor of KAIST Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and the director of the Center for Ultramicrochemical Process Systems, has developed a high-speed research method that can maximize research performances and posted the relevant contents on the online version of Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), a distinguished scientific journal, on January 9, 2007.
Professor Woo’s team has developed a high-speed research method that can fabricate several tens or several thousands of thin films with different compositions (mixing ratio) at the same time and carry out structural analysis and performance evaluation more than ten times faster and accurately, which leads to the shortening of the research processes of thin film materials. This is an epoch-making method that can reduce research periods and expenses several ten times or more, compared to the previous methods.
The qualities of final products of electronic materials, displays, and semi-conductors depend on the features of thin film materials. Averagely, it takes about two weeks or longer to fabricate a functional thin film and analyze and evaluate its performances. In order to fabricate thin film materials in need successfully, more than several thousand times of tests are required.
The existing thin film-fabricating equipment is expensive one demanding high-degree vacuum, such as chemical vapor deposition, sputtering, physical vapor deposition, laser evaporation, and so on. In order to fabricate thin films of various compositions with this equipment, a several million won-worth target (solid-state raw material) and precursors (volatile organic metal compound) pricing several hundreds won per gram are required. Therefore, huge amount of experiment expense is demanded for fabrication of several ten thousands of thin films with various compositions.
Professor Woo’s team has developed ‘combinatorial droplet chemical deposition’ equipment, which does not demand high-degree vacuum and is automated by computers and robots, by using a new high-speed research measure. The equipment is priced at about 1/5 of the existing equipment and easy for maintenance.
This equipment uses cheap reagents, instead of expensive raw materials. Reagents necessary to form required compositions are dissolved in water or proper solvents, and then applied by high frequencies to make several micrometer-scaled droplets (fine liquid droplet). Theses droplets are moved by nitrogen and dropped onto a substrate, which is to be fabricated into a thin film, and then subsequent thermal treatment is applied to the substrate to fabricate a thin film of required composition. At this moment, several tens or several hundreds of thin films with various compositions can be fabricated at the same time by reducing the size of thin film specimens into millimeter scale with the use of shade mask and adjusting vaporization time with masks, the moving speed of which can be adjusted. The expenses for materials necessary for the fabrication of thin films with this equipment amount to several ten thousands won per 100 grams, which is in the range of 1/100 and 1/10 of the previous methods, and the research period can be shortened into one of several tenth.
“If this new method is applied to the development of elements in the fields of core energy, material and health, which have not been discovered by the existing research methods so far, as well as researches in thin film material field, substantial effects will be brought,” said Professor Woo.
‘Combinatorial droplet chemical vaporization’ equipment is pending a domestic patent application and international patent applications at Japan and Germany. This equipment will be produced by order and provided to general researchers.
2007.02.02 View 15675
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Professor Sang-Yup Lee Senior Editor of U.S. Biotechnology Journal
Professor Sang-Yup Lee Named Senior Editor of U.S. Biotechnology Journal
Will supervise paper examination in the fields of system biology, system bioengineering and
metabolic engineering, and set editing direction
Professor Sang-Yup Lee, LG Chemical’s Chair-Professor and the leader of BK project group of KAIST Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, was named senior editor of Biotechnology Journal published by the U.S. Wiley-VCH.
Professor Lee will supervise paper examination in the fields of system biology, system bioengineering and metabolic engineering, and set and manage the editing direction of the journal.
‘Biotechnology Journal’ was first published in January 2006 to exchange rapidly-exchanging knowledge and information in life science and its relevant fields by Wiley, a world-famous science journal publisher with the history of 208 years (founded in 1799). Particularly, ‘Biotechnology Journal’ is a new-typed scientific journal treating various fields such as life science research-relevant ethics and cultures necessary for general people as well as expertise research information of life science.
“Although taking charge of editing of many scientific journals spends much time, it’s very fruitful that I’ll lead the direction of research papers of many world-famous scientific journals and I can make efforts to prevent outstanding papers by Korean scientists from being disadvantaged,” said Professor Lee.
“More Korean scholars are taking charge of editing jobs of world-famous scientific journals. It’s a good indication that the capacities of Korean science and engineering have been enhanced significantly as much,” a staff of KAIST PR team said.
Meanwhile, Professor Lee, distinguished by outstanding research performances in the fields of metabolic engineering and system life engineering, is now ▲associate editor of Biotechnology and Bioengineering, top scientific journal of biotech engineering published by the U.S. Wiley ▲editor of Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology published by German Springer ▲ associate editor of Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering by German Springer, and editing member of ▲ Journal of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology by Singapore’s World Scientific ▲ Asia Pacific Biotech News ▲ Biochemical Engineering Journal, Metabolic Engineering, and Microbial Cell Factory by Elsevier.
2007.02.02 View 14024
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Professor Jongwon Lee wins Korean Engineering Award
Professor Jongwon Lee wins Korean Engineering Award
Professor Jongwon Lee of the department of Mechanical Engineering won the 7th Korean Engineering Award conferred by the Ministry of Science and Technology and Korean Science and Engineering Foundation.
Professor Lee is a world-famous scholar in the field of ‘dynamics and vibration of rotors’ and his work in 1993, ‘Vibration Analysis of Rotors’, is highly recognized as a creative and practical research on the dynamics of rotors.
The Korean Engineering Award is conferred on domestic scientists who have made world-level research achievements in the engineering field by the Ministry of Science and Technology and Korean Science and Technology Foundation every two years.
2007.01.11 View 12170
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Yoonsun Doh Wins 'Outstanding Poster Paper Award' at IDW
Yoonsun Doh Wins ‘Outstanding Poster Paper Award’ at IDW
Yoonsun Doh, a master-course student at the Division of Electrical Engineering (Advisory professor Kyungchul Choi) won the Outstanding Poster Paper Award at IDW 2006, which was held at Otsu, Japan on December 8, 2006.
The title of Doh’s paper is ‘Relationship between IR Emission of Reset Discharge and Image Retention in AC PDP’.
At the paper, Doh proposed a method capable of quantitatively measuring the temporary image-sticking phenomena, which is raised as a problem that impairs the quality of images on an AC PDP.
2006.12.26 View 13145
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Final competition of 'UFC' contest
Final competition of ‘UFC’ contest
Joint university team D-M2 won first prize
The final winner of ‘the 2nd Ubiquitous Fashionable Computer (UFC) contest‘, co-hosted by KAIST and the Korean Society for Next-Generation Computing (KSNGC), was determined.
At the final competition of November 17 among 9 qualified teams, the first prize went to D-M2, composed of students from Seokyeong University, Kookmin University, Hongik University, and Sungshin Women’s University. D-M2 manufactured a work utilizing a user’s motion information by applying motion capture technologies to UFC. Particularly, the work gained a high score at the item of the functional perfection by controlling the robot according to a user’s motion.
The gold prize went to the smart jacket by Jjik-eo-cha-ki (Kwangwoon University and Duksung Women’s University). The smart jacket is embedded with an intelligent clothes function in terms of checking a user’s status in a real-time basis and delivering it to a doctor, etc.
The silver and bronze prizes went to Samsung Software Membership (SSM) and Hanse University, respectively. SSM manufactured a training suit with sensors for grasping the movement of each articulation of a user built-in, and Hanse University developed a system enabling blinders to get a voice service of general documents or books regardless of time and place.
The participants composed of university students or graduate students have passed the severe qualifying contest through the examination of written plan and presentation of last April and manufactured creative works that realize the fusion of IT technologies and fashion.
At the contest, that fact that all winners of the first, gold, and silver prizes were the members of SSM gained more attention.
UFC is a new field that pursuits the enhancement of computer technologies and the creation of fashion simultaneously by fusing IT technologies and fashions. UFC is a one-step advanced field of the existing wearable computer and an important cutting-edge field that leads a computer industry in the era of ubiquitous.
“The level of the works exhibited was higher than I’d expected and the cooperation between the departments of Closing Textile and Electronics appeared to be so positive, which made me expect more brilliant future of the next-generation computing industry,” said Hoijoon You, Co-chairman of the contest and professor of the department of Electrical Engineering.
2006.11.27 View 15287
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Professor Ikho Song Wins Academic Award of Haedong Information & Communication
Professor Ikho Song Wins Academic Award of Haedong Information & Communication
Professor Ikho Song (Division of Electrical Engineering) won an academic award of Haedong Information & Communication at a regular meeting of Korean Institute of Communication Sciences 2006. The award was given to Professor Song in recognition of his presenting excellent papers at many renowned domestic and global academic journals and his substantial contribution to the development of the information & communication field.
Meanwhile, Hyungmoon Kwon, a doctorate student under Professor Song’s supervisory, also won an award of excellent paper at the meeting.
2006.11.27 View 11987
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Youngseok Son and Yongjoon Chun won a prize of Commerce, Industry and Energy Minister
Youngseok Son and Yongjoon Chun won a prize of Commerce, Industry and Energy Minister
Youngseok Son and Yongjoon Chun, doctorate students at circuit design and system application lab of Electrical Engineering Division, won a prize of Commerce, Industry and Energy Minister (Silver prize) at the 7th Semiconductor Design Contest hosted by the Korean Intellectual Property Office.
Their work exhibited at the contest is ‘a driving circuit for the improvement of image quality of AMOLED display’.
AMOLED display is gaining attention as a next-generation display for its numberless advantages compared to AMLCD and PDP, however, problems over the image quality and lifespan of the display have disturbed the substantial development. Their work verified its electrical features by proposing and designing the driving method and circuit for the improvement of the image quality and lifespan of AMOLED display. The announced driving method was named ‘Transient Cancellation Feedback (FCF)’ and its concept was published in SID 2006. Their work was evaluated to overcome the limitation of the existing driving methods by providing an intrinsic Active Matrix structure, different from the existing driving methods.
It is also evaluated to strikingly enhance the speed and accuracy of data current driving through TCF driving. It is expected to significantly enhance the image quality and lifespan of AMOLED displays by applying TCF driving.
2006.11.27 View 15011
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Jinkon Chung won gold prize at 'Intel student paper contest'
Jinkon Chung won gold prize at ‘Intel student paper contest’
Jinkon Chung, doctorate student at the Division of Electrical Engineering under Professor Yonghoon Lee’s supervisory, won the gold prize at ‘the student paper contest 2006’ organized by Intel Korea.
Chung proposed an important key for the next-generation mobile communication technologies at his paper entitled with ‘Regularized channel diagonalization for multi-user MIMO downlink using a modified MMSE criterion’.
That is a new linear processing algorithm showing superior performances to the existing ZF-based or MMSC-based methods under the circumference of multi-user MIMO, which is the most spotlighted field in the recent next-generation mobile communication technologies, which was highly evaluated in the contest.
Meanwhile, Howon Lee and Sunghoon Lim, Division of Electrical Engineering, also won bronze prizes.
2006.11.27 View 12766
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Gold prize for Sungkoo Yeo and silver prize for Youngsik Kim at 'Samsung Electrics paper contest'
Gold prize for Sungkoo Yeo and silver prize for Youngsik Kim at ‘Samsung Electrics paper contest’
Sungkoo Yeo, doctorate student at the division of Electrical Engineering, and Youngsik Kim, doctorate students at the division of Mechanical Engineering, won gold and silver prizes respectively at ‘the 2nd Inside edge paper contest’ organized by Samsung Electronics.
Yeo, under the supervisory of Professor Youngse Kwon, won the glory of gold prize in recognition of his highly evaluated researches in the fields of silicon-based micro mold manufacturing technologies and fine shaping technologies revealed by his paper of ‘"Fabrication of Microlens array Using PDMS Replica Molding and Oxidized Porous Silicon Bulk Micromachining’.
Kim, under the supervisory of Professor Seungwoo Kim, also won the silver prize for his research performances over the thickness pattern measuring technologies of transparent thin film coated on the pattern of an opaque metal in the field of optical technology unveiled by his paper of "Dispersive white-light interferometry for in-line inspection of thin-film layers on patterned structures".
Inside Edge paper contest is an academic paper contest organized by Samsung Electronics to reveal the fresh ideas and potential technologies of the young talented.
2006.11.27 View 15231
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Best Prize to Sungwook Choi and Gold Prize to Heeseok Han at Paper Contest
Best Prize to Sungwook Choi and Gold Prize to Heeseok Han at Paper Contest
Best Prize to Sungwook Choi and Gold Prize to Heeseok Han at Fairchild Korea Graduate Student Paper Contest
Sungwook Choi and Heeseok Han, both in doctorate course at KAIST Department of Electrical Engineering, won best prize and gold prize respectively at the 1st Fairchild Korea Graduate Student Paper Contest.
The title of Choi’s paper is ‘Cost Effective Multi-Level Single Sustaining Driver for Plasma Display Panel with Dual Energy Recovery Path’.
And the title of Han’s paper is ‘Digital Control IC for Electronic Ballast using Mixed Mode Excitation’.
Choi’s paper proposes a new driver that can avoid the problems of IGBT, a power switch used at PDP driving circuit, gaining attention as next-generation display, for cost-reduction. Choi showed his feeling of pleasure by saying, “I’m very pleased that my paper can contribute to PDP popularization and development of power switch for PDP through cost-reduction. I’d like to acknowledge Professor Kunwoo Moon, who has instructed me with persistence and interest at all times.”
Meanwhile, total 56 papers from 23 universities are applied for the contest, and total 11 papers were awarded after two rounds of examination in terms of novelty, creativeness, technical difficulties, etc. Awardees will be exempted from documentation test and are eligible for additive points when they hope to join Fairchild Korea.
2006.11.14 View 14101
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Professor Sang-Yup Lee publishes a requested paper in Nature Biotechnology
Professor Sang-Yup Lee publishes a requested paper in Nature Biotechnology
“The era of commercialized bioplastic is coming”
Disclose an opinion as specialist at a requested paper in Nature Biotechnology, October 2006
A team led by Barbel Friedrich, Professor of Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, and Alexander Steinbuchel, Professor of West falische Wilhelms-Universitat Munster, found out the entire genome sequence of the typical bioplastic-producing microorganism ‘Ralstonia eutropha’ and published a paper on it in Nature Biotechnology, October 2006. As the entire genome sequence of the typical bioplactic-producing microorganism has been discovered, it is expected that the efficient production of bioplastic will be available through strain improvement at a more systematic level.
Regarding this paper, Nature Biotechnology requested world-renowned scholar Sang-Yup Lee, LG Chemical Chair-Professor of KAIST Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, an expert analysis on the future of bioplastic production as a result of the deciphering of the genome sequence, and Professor Lee revealed his opinion at ‘News and Views’ in Nature Biotechnology, October 2006, issued on October 10. In the analysis, he insisted, “The deciphering of the genomes of Ralstonia means to pave the way for the improvement of strains at a system level by combining simulation through various omics and imaginary cells and engineering at a genome level. It will be possible to produce plastic with desired properties by altering the components of plastic as desired and produce bioplastic, more efficient and economical than have been reported so far, through the optimization of metabolic flow.”
Professor Lee is a world-renowned scholar in the bioplastic field, who has presented about 70 SCI papers in the field. He created a word ‘Plastic Bacteria’ at Trends in Biotechnology in 1996 and published an expert paper regarding E.Coli Plastic at Nature Biotechnology in 1997. He is now performing a research concerning the improvement of bioplastic-producing strains as an example of a research employing a systematic method for the system biological research and development project of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
The followings are the contents of Professor Lee’s paper concerning microorganism plastic published at ‘News and Views’ in Nature Biotechnology, October 2006.
- Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) is a high molecule that numerous microorganisms accumulate in their own cells as energy storage substance when they are rich in carbonic resources, but poor in the other growth factors. The PHA high molecule is polyester, in which the unit substances (unit chemicals) are ester-bonded, and has been studied worldwide about twenty years before. However, PHA’s worse properties than petrochemical plastic and extremely high production cost have prevented its commercialization. The production cost of PHA was 15 dollars per kg in 1980’s, twenty times higher than the price of polypropylene. Sang-Yup Lee, LG Chemical Chair-Professor of KAIST Chemical & Biomolecular Department’s BK21 Project Group, has performed a research concerning the efficient production of microorganism plastic through the combination of metabolic engineering and fermentation process under the support of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and developed a process that lowers the production cost of PHA to 2-3 dollars per kg. He also has developed PHA-producing bacteria, efficient enough to fill plastic tightly, and named it ‘Plastic Bacteria’.
- The unprecedented rise of oil price for the past two years activated the researches on Bio-based energies and chemical production globally. PHA is also regaining attentions although the researches on it have been withered so far due to its poor economical efficiency and properties. The result of the genome deciphering of the typical plastic-producing microorganism ‘Ralstonia eutropha’ published by a German research team in Nature Biotechnology, October 2006 suggests huge meanings. That is, it will provide a blueprint over the metabolic activities of the bacteria and thus enables more systematic strain improvement.
- Eyeing on these facts, Nature Biotechnology requested Professor Sang-Yup Lee an expert analysis, and Professor Lee analyzed that there would be a dramatic development of microorganism plastic production through the application of the system biological engineering method, which is now being performed actively by Professor Lee at KAIST. In the analysis, Professor Lee revealed, “As the genome sequence has been found out, it becomes possible to establish metabolic network at a genome level, and since simulation becomes available, numberless trial and errors and experiments can be replaced with imaginary experiments rapidly. In addition, It makes the more efficient development of strains possible by fusion-analyzing the omics result such as various transcripts, proteins, metabolites, etc.” He also expected that it would be possible to produce tailor-made PHA having desired properties through metabolic engineering as well as the efficient production of plastic. Besides, he prospected that his research on the production of optically pure hydroxyl carboxyl acid, Professor Lee’s international patent right, would gain driving forces and technical development would be made rapidly at biological hydrogen production, production, dissolution and application of aromatic compounds, etc. by featuring this strain.
- Recently, Metabolic and ADM, U.S. companies, jointly started to produce PHA at a commercialization level, and Brazil having rich natural resources is commercializing PHA, following Bio-ethanol. In addition, Japan and Germany having a bunch of research performance in this field, and Australia having rich biomass are also performing consistent researches on PHA’s commercialization. Professor Lee prospected, “With the finding out of the genome sequence of the typical bioplastic-producing microorganism, competition for commercialization will be fiercer among nations through the development of efficient production systems.”
- Professor Lee prospected that as the efficient production of PHA becomes possible, the production of plastic from various renewable ingredients (cellurose, starch, suger, etc.) through microorganism fermentation would be made practically and the white biotechnologies of existing chemicals would gain more power. He also said, “Korea also will have to try to secure the production technologies and industry of Bio-based chemicals through strategic cooperation with resource powerfuls, etc. on the basis of the technical dominancy in some system metabolic engineering fields.”
- ‘News and Views’ in Nature Biotechnology is a section that publishes analyses of world-renowned specialists in the corresponding fields over the contents of some papers having great influences among papers published in the issue. KAIST Professor Sang-Yup Lee has published his second expert analysis of ‘Deciphering bioplastic production’ in the volume of October 2006, following the first paper ‘Going into the era of E.Coli plastic’.
2006.10.23 View 14994