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The 2015 KAIST Commencement
A total of 2,678 students (522 for Doctor's, 1,241 for Master’s, and 915 for Bachelor's) graduated.
Twin brothers received their Ph.D. degrees together.
KAIST held its commencement ceremony on February 13, 2015. Approximately 8,000 people including the graduating class, their families, faculty, staff, and friends attended the ceremony and celebrated this milestone.
President Steve Kang of KAIST congratulated the graduating students and stressed the importance of their “contribution to social growth with a compassionate heart and expertise” in his commencement address. He also mentioned that all graduates would be recognized as a “Very Important Person (VIP)” and laid out the essential characteristics of what constitutes a “true VIP”: vision, innovation, and perseverance.
Among the graduates were twin brothers, Dae-Ok Kim of the Energy, Environment, Water, and Sustainability (EEWS) Graduate School and Dae-Woo Kim of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, who received their doctorates on the same day.
The older brother, Dr. Dae-Ok Kim received both his Bachelor of Science (B.S.) and Master’s degrees from KAIST’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and later was admitted to the EEWS Graduate School for his doctorate. His dissertation was an “Investigation on the behaviors of gas molecules in water-filled nanopores: Applications to energy and environmental technology.” Professor Huen Lee of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering was his faculty adviser.
Dr. Dae-Ok Kim said, “It was a great advantage to conduct cooperative research with my brother by sharing information and discussing each other’s fields.” After graduating, Dr. Kim plans to research gas hydrates and porous materials at KAIST’s Energy and Environmental Systems Lab for a year and to continue his research on applications in the United States.
The younger brother, Dr. Dae-Woo Kim received his B.S. from KAIST’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and was admitted to the Master of Science-Ph.D. Integrated Degree Program in the same department. His doctoral thesis was on “Direct visualization of large-area domains of two dimensional materials by using optical birefringency.” His faculty adviser was Professor Hee Tae Jung of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Dr. Dae-Woo Kim said, “During my time at the graduate school, I could overcome my difficulties by talking frankly to my brother. Our relationship deepened as we reached our academic goals together at KAIST.”
Dr. Dae-Woo Kim, who published more than 25 papers in international journals such as Nature and Nanotechnology, received the Silver Prize in the Human Tech Paper Awards sponsored by Samsung Electronics Corp. in 2011. After graduating, Dr. Kim will research graphene and 2D material structure control at KAIST’s Organic Opto-Electronic Materials Lab for a year and take up further research on their applications in the United States.
KAIST Commencement 2015
In the picture below, the twins pose together at the 2015 commencement. At the left is Dae-Ok Kim (elder brother) and the right is Dae-Woo Kim.
2015.02.16 View 8487 -
Professor Sang Yup Lee Appointed Founding Board Member of Cell Systems
Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at KAIST has been appointed a member of the founding editorial board of the newly established journal Cell Systems.
Cell Systems will be a sister journal of Cell, one of the three most prestigious scientific journals along with Nature and Science, that publishes a wide range of papers on biological engineering. The first issue of Cell Systems will be published this July.
Cell Systems plans to publish innovative discoveries, reviews of various research instruments, and research findings on integrated and quantified systems in the field of biology.
Professor Lee is a pioneer in metabolic engineering of microorganism with a focus on biopolymers and metabolites production. He is the editor-in-chief of Biotechnology Journal and serves on the editorial board of numerous international journals. He is also a member of the Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum and the Presidential Advisory Committee on Science and Technology in Korea.
Professor Lee said, “Cell Systems will present research findings that discuss whole biological systems methodically.” He continued, “I hope many research findings of Korean scholars will be published in Cell Systems, which will become a representative journal of systems biology and systems biological engineering.”
2015.02.13 View 8510 -
Professor Kwang-Hyun Cho Recognzied by "Scientist of the Month" Award
Professor Kwang-Hyun Cho of KAIST’s Department of Bio and Brain Engineering received the “Scientist of the Month” award in February 2015 from the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea. The award was in recognition of Professor Cho’s contribution to the advanced technique of controlling the death of cancer cells based on systems biology, a convergence research in information technology (IT) and biotechnology.
Professor Cho has published around 140 articles in international journals, including 34 papers in renowned science journals such as Nature, Science, and Cell in the past three years. His work also includes systems biology textbooks and many entries in international academic encyclopaedia.
His field, systems biology, is a new biological research paradigm that identifies and controls the fundamental principles of organisms on a systems level.
A well-known tumour suppressor protein, p53, is known to suppress abnormal cell growth and promote apoptosis of can cells, and thus was a focus of research by many scientists, but its effect has been insignificant and brought many side effects. This was due to the complex function of p53 that controls various positive and negative feedbacks. Therefore, there was a limit to understanding the protein with the existing biological approach.
However, Professor Cho found the kinetic change and function of p53 via a systems biology approach. By applying IT technology to complex biological networks, he also identified the response to stress and the survival and death signal transduction pathways of cardiomyocytes and developed new control methods for cancer cells.
Professor Cho said, “This award served as a momentum to turn over a new leaf.” He added, “I hope convergence research such as my field will bring more innovative ideas on the boundaries of academia.”
2015.02.09 View 11378 -
KAIST's Thermoelectric Generator on Glass Fabric Receives the Grand Prize at the Netexplo Forum 2015
The forum announced top ten IT innovations expected to change the world and selected the grand prize on February 4, 2014.
Established in 2007 by Martine Bidegain and Thierry Happe in partnership with the French Senate and the French Ministry for the Digital Economy, the Netexplo Observatory is an independent global organization that studies the impact of digital technology and innovation on society and business.
Every year, the Netexplo Observatory hosts an international conference, the Netexplo Forum, in Paris, France, which surveys digital innovation worldwide. The 8th forum was held in partnership with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on February 4-5, 2015, at the UNESCO House in Paris.
Prior to the conference, the Netexplo Forum 2015 named the top ten most promising digital technologies that will greatly impact the world.
Among them was Professor Byung Jin Cho’s research on a wearable thermoelectric generator (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-04/tkai-tgo041014.php). The generator was selected as the most innovative technology this year.
Professor Cho of KAIST’s Electrical Engineering Department developed a glass fabric-based thermoelectric generator that is extremely light and flexible and that produces electricity from the heat of the human body. This technology can be applied widely to wearable computers and mobile devices.
The full list of innovations follows below:
Wearable Thermo-Element, South Korea: The human body becomes a source of energy for mobile devices.
W.Afate 3D-printer, Togo: An environmentally friendly fablab that makes a low-cost 3D-printer from recycling electronic components.
Slack, USA: By combining email, Skype, and file-sharing and social networks, internal communication becomes much easier and simpler.
PhotoMath, Croatia: A free app that enables smartphone users to solve mathematical problems simply by scanning the mathematical texts.
Kappo, Chile: Connected cyclists produce and transmit useful data for urban planning to make the city more bike-friendly.
Branching Minds, USA: An improved learning process for students in difficulty through a personalized approach.
Baidu Kuai Sou, China: Smart chopsticks that can check food hazards.
SCio, Israel: A pocket molecular sensor with various applications and data
Rainforest Connection, USA: Fighting deforestation with recycled smartphones
Sense Ebola Followup, Nigeria: A mobile tool to help contain Ebola
For more details on the wearable thermos-element which received the 2015 Netexplo Award, please go to https://www.netexplo.org/en/intelligence/innovation/wearable-thermo-element.
Pictures 1 and 2: A high-performance wearable thermoelectric generator that is extremely flexible and light.
Picture 3: Senator Catherine Morin-Desailly (left) of the French Parliament presents the 2015 Netexplo Award to Professor Byung Jin Cho (right) on February 4, 2015 at the UNESCO House in Paris.
Credit of Loran Dhérines
Picture 4: Professor Byung Jin Cho (left) poses with Dr. Joël de Rosnay (right).
Credit of Loran Dhérines
2015.02.06 View 12748 -
Dr. Hak-Min Kim Appointed New KAIST Auditor
KAIST’s Board of Trustees appointed Dr. Hak-Min Kim the new auditor for the university on January 30, 2015 at the K Hotel in Seoul. Dr. Kim will serve from January 30, 2015 to January 29, 2018.
A bachelor's graduate of the Metallurgical Engineering Department at Seoul National University, Dr. Kim received his master’s and doctoral degrees from Carnegie Mellon University in the United States. He returned to Korea in the early 1980s and worked for the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM), the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Evaluation and Planning, and the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, the Republic of Korea.
Since 2012, Dr. Kim has been serving the Research Committee at the Korea Institute of Materials Science, an affiliation of KIMM.
2015.02.06 View 6651 -
Press Release on Piezoelectric Nanogenerators of ZnO with Aluminium Nitride Stacked Layers by the American Institute of Physics
The
American Institute of Physics (AIP) released a news article entitled “Zinc
Oxide Materials Tapped for Tiny Energy Harvesting Devices” on January 13, 2015.
The
article described the research led by Professor Giwan Yoon of the
Electrical Engineering Department at KAIST. It was published in the January
12, 2015 issue of Applied Physics Letters.
AIP publishes the journal. For the news release, please visit the
link below:
The American
Institute of Physics, January 13, 2015
“Zinc
Oxide Materials Tapped for Tiny Energy Harvesting Devices”
New research helps
pave the way toward highly energy-efficient zinc oxide-based micro energy
harvesting devices with applications in portable communications, healthcare and
environmental monitoring, and more
http://www.aip.org/publishing/journal-highlights/zinc-oxide-materials-tapped-tiny-energy-harvesting-devices
2015.02.04 View 31554 -
News Article: Flexible, High-performance Nonvolatile Memory Developed with SONOS Technology
Professor Yang-Kyu Choi of KAIST’s Department of Electrical Engineering and his team presented a research paper entitled “Flexible High-performance Nonvolatile Memory by Transferring GAA Silicon Nanowire SONOS onto a Plastic Substrate” at the conference of the International Electron Devices Meeting that took place on December 15-17, 2014 in San Francisco.
The Electronic Engineering Journal (http://www.eejournal.com/) recently posted an article on the paper:
Electronic Engineering Journal, February 2, 2015
“A Flat-Earth Memory”
Another Way to Make the Brittle Flexible
http://www.techfocusmedia.net/archives/articles/20150202-flexiblegaa/?printView=true
2015.02.03 View 7057 -
"Software Welcomes Girls" Camp at KAIST
KAIST’s Department of Computer Science organized a software (SW) training camp from January 25-29, 2015 in the Creative Learning Building on campus to promote talented women for the field of information technology (IT).
Hosted by the National Information Society Agency in Korea and the Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity, the training camp was comprised of a junior program to educate primary and secondary school students along with teachers and parents, while university students, software developers, and female professionals who had interrupted their careers participated in a senior camp.
In the junior camp, participants learned how to employ Scratch and App Inventor as well as microprocessors by using Arduino and Raspberry Pi. During the camp, students including those from multicultural families attended lectures from professors and software designers and received a career consulting session from them. The conference organizers will provide long-term mentoring for the primary and secondary school students by graduate student participants and other volunteer experts.
The senior camp consisted of a program entitled “More Women, Better SW!” and a special lecture on “Women in SOS (Software Optimization Services)” took place at Google Korea. University students, teachers, and SW developers had an opportunity to design applications intended to improve daily living. At the “Women in SOS” program, Professor Alice Oh of KAIST and other industry experts gave talks about successful women IT personnel and digital literacy.
One of the organizers, Professor Yoon-Joon Lee from the Computer Science Department said, “Software-centered societies in the future will demand delicate intuition and cooperative leadership, which are characteristics of women.” He added that “I hope more women become interested in this field through this event.”
2015.02.02 View 7018 -
Singaporean Minister for Education Visits KAIST
Heng Swee Keat, the Minister for Education of Singapore, and his delegation visited KAIST on January 26, 2015, to discuss innovative education models being implemented by KAIST and future cooperation with Singaporean universities.
The visit included 21 key personnel responsible for higher and gifted educational programs in the Singaporean government.
Minister Heng showed great interest in KASIT's learner-focused teaching method, "Education 3.0," and graduate school-centered education. He said, "Singapore is in the process of making innovations in university education, for example, by offering more opportunities for global education such as joint programs with leading universities like MIT and Yale University in the US."
In the picture, Vice President for Planning and Budget Seung Bin Park (sixth from the left), KAIST, and Minister Heng Swee Keat (right next to Park) posed together.
2015.01.28 View 6088 -
KAIST Students Volunteer in Cambodia
To provide science education for Cambodian high school students and to share Korean art and culture.
Cambodia was one of the 60 nations that joined the United Nations’ efforts to help South Korea during the Korean War in the 1950s. Now, a group of KAIST students starts a journey to return what that nation gave to Koreans so generously over six decades ago.
Initiated and planned by students, the volunteering project “KAIST Dream Tree Global Volunteering in Cambodia” offers science and math education to high school students in Cambodia for 11 days. The volunteer team is consisted of 15 undergraduate students and one faculty advisor, and they will work at Hosanna High School in Phnom Penh, Cambodia from January 24 to February 3, 2015.
With around 150 student participants from Hosanna High School, KAIST students will teach math, physics, chemistry, and biology. They will also provide an opportunity to learn about Korean art and culture, including Taekwondo, a Korean traditional martial art, mural painting, and Korean language.
As K-Pop (Korean pop music) and Korean movies and television dramas have become popular in Cambodia, KAIST students will perform musicals and host a singing contest together with Cambodian students for fun and enjoyment. In addition, students from both countries plan to create flower beds around the high school campus.
Prior to the KAIST team’s departure to Cambodia, the university held a small ceremony to support the students’ volunteer work. Attending the ceremony with other senior faculty members, President Steve Kang thanked the students. He said, “KAIST students have been receiving tremendous support from Korean citizens, and it’s great to see how our students are repaying their generosity by helping young people who are less privileged. I’m really proud of our students and hope that this tradition of sharing science knowledge and passion for science with the global community continues.”
The ceremony took place on January 19, 2015 at the Guesthouse on campus.
2015.01.27 View 6660 -
Danish Minister for Higher Education and Science Visits KAIST
Sofie Carsten Nielsen, the Minister for Higher Education and Science of Denmark, accompanied by her delegation, visited KAIST on January 21, 2015 to study outstanding cases of creative economy and to discuss methods of cooperation.
Her delegation included other distinguished members including Thomas Lehmann, the Danish ambassador to Korea, Peter Olesen, Chairman of Innovation Foundation Denmark Governing Board, and Martin Bendsøe, Senior Vice President and Dean of Technical University of Denmark.
After attending the "Electronic Communication Double Degree Agreement" signing ceremony between KAIST’s Department of Electrical Engineering and the Technical University of Denmark, Minister Nielsen visited KAIST’s Institute of Entrepreneurship to observe bilateral industry-university collaborations between KAIST and Denmark and discussed future development plans.
Also, the Grundfos Student Innovation Camp, sponsored by Grundfos, the world's largest pump manufacturer based in Denmark, took place at KAIST from October 26-31, 2014 where Grundfos professionals as well as students from Seoul National University, KAIST, and Technical University of Denmark (DTU) exchanged ideas and opinions on energy efficiency.
KAIST is currently conducting 19 collaborative projects including seven joint researches and seven joint degrees with DTU.
Minister Sofie Carsten Nielsen stands fifth from the left in the front row in the first picture below.
2015.01.27 View 8404 -
Light Driven Drug-Enzyme Reaction Catalytic Platform Developed
Low Cost Dye Used, Hope for Future Development of High Value Medicinal Products to Treat Cardiovascular Disease and Gastric Ulcers
A KAIST research team from the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, led respectively by Professors Chan Beum Park and Ki Jun Jeong, has developed a new reaction platform to induce drug-enzyme reaction using light.
The research results were published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, International Edition, as the back cover on 12 January 2015.
Applications of this technology may enable production of high value products such as medicine for cardiovascular disease and gastric ulcers, for example Omeprazole, using an inexpensive dye.
Cytochrome P450 is an enzyme involved in oxidative response which has an important role in drug and hormone metabolism in organisms. It is known to be responsible for metabolism of 75% of drugs in humans and is considered a fundamental factor in new drug development.
To activate cytochrome P450, the enzyme must receive an electron by reducing the enzyme. In addition, NADPH (a coenzyme) needs to be present. However, since NADPH is expensive, the use of cytochrome P450 was limited to the laboratory and has not yet been commercialized.
The research team used photosensitizer eosin Y instead of NADPH to develop “Whole Cell Photo-Biocatalysis” in bacteria E. coli. By exposing inexpensive eosin Y to light, cytochrome P450 reaction was catalyzed to produce the expensive metabolic material.
Professor Park said, “This research enabled industrial application of cytochrome P450 enzyme, which was previous limited.” He continued, “This technology will help greatly in producing high value medical products using cytochrome P450 enzyme.”
The research was funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea and KAIST's High Risk High Return Project (HRHRP).
Figure 1: Mimetic Diagram of Electron Transfer from Light to Cytochrome P450 Enzyme via Eosin Y, EY
Figure 2: The back cover of Angewandte Chemie published on 12 January 2015, showing the research results
2015.01.26 View 9514