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Professor Seok-Jung Kang Is Appointed the Director of the Korea Institute of Ceramic Engineering and Technology
Professor Seok-Jung Kang of the Material Sciences and Engineering Department at KAIST has been appointed to the position of the third Director of the Korea Institute of Ceramic Engineering and Technology. His three-year term will begin September 9, 2015.
An authority in the field of ceramics, Professor Kang has taught at KAIST since 1980. He received his bachelor’s degree from the Department of Metallurgical Engineering at Seoul National University, his master’s degree at KAIST, and his doctoral degree at the Ecole Centrale de Paris.
Professor Kang received the Robert B. Sosman Award in 2011, an annual prize given by the American Society of Ceramics to recognize outstanding achievement in basic science in an area that results in significant impact to the field of ceramics. He was the first Asian recipient of the award.
He also received the 2015 Professor Sir Richard Brooke Award, a prestigious bi-annual prize presented to an outstanding scholar by the European Society of Ceramics.
2015.09.15 View 7073 -
KAIST's Student Job Fair 2015
KAIST’s Undergraduate Student Council and Graduate Student Council jointly hosted the 2015 KAIST Job Fair on September 2-3, 2015 at the Sports Complex on campus.
The Job Fair took place for the sixth time this year. Forty-three companies, including some of the largest ones in Korea such as Samsung, Hyundai, LG, SK Construction, Hankook Tires, as well as those owned by KAIST graduates, have participated.
The Job Fair specialized in three fields: information technology (IT) and electronic and mechanical engineering. The event included one-to-one employment counseling between human resources managers and students, mock interviews, employment orientations, job consulting, interview makeup lessons, resume writing and photo-shooting, etc.
The international students who attended the event received information packages on employment from the participating companies.
This event was open not only to KAIST students but also to students from other universities in the local community, offering more job opportunities to a wider range of people.
Last year alone, a total of 1,200 people including KAIST students and graduates joined the KAIST’s Job Fair.
2015.09.04 View 6894 -
KAIST's Research Team Receives the Best Paper Award from the IEEE Transaction on Power Electronics
A research team led by Professor Chun T. Rim of the Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has received the First Prize Papers Award from the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Transactions on Power Electronics (TPEL), a peer-reviewed journal that covers fundamental technologies used in the control and conversion of electric power.
A total of three research papers received this award in 2015.
Each year, TPEL’s editors select three best papers among those published in the journal during the preceding calendar year. In 2014, the TPEL published 579 papers. Professor Rim’s paper was picked out as one of the three papers published last year for the First Prize Papers Award.
Entitled “Generalized Active EMF (electromagnetic field) Cancel Methods for Wireless Electric Vehicles (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=6684288&tag=1),” the paper proposed, for the first time in the world, three generalized design methods for cancelling the total EMF generated from wireless electric vehicles. This technology, researchers said, can be applied to any wireless power transfer systems.
The award ceremony will be held at the upcoming conference of the 2015 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Expo in September in Montreal, Canada.
2015.08.27 View 11402 -
KAIST holds the 2015 KAIST-MIT-Technion International Symposium on Nano Science
The 2015 KAIST-MIT-Technion International Symposium on Nano Science was held on August 11, 2015 at the KAIST campus. The event took place under three subtopics: Materials for Production and Storage of Renewable Energy, Functional Materials, and Multiferroic Materials.
The joint symposium invited more than 300 experts in material science and engineering including ten speakers and panelists. From MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Professors Harry L. Tuller and Geoffrey S. Beach in the Department of Material Engineering, as well as Professor Gregory Rutledge in the Department of Chemical Engineering joined the symposium. Professor Avner Rothschild in the Department of Material Engineering and Professor Yair Ein-Eli in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Technion Institute of Technology in Israel also participated.
From KAIST, Professors Il-Doo Kim, Byong-Guk Park, and Yeon-Sik Jung in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Professor Chan-Ho Yang in the Department of Physics, and Professor Doh-Chang Lee in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering spoke at the event. The list of topics included “Next Generation Lithium-Air Battery,” “Nano Materials for High Performance Energy Storage System,” and “Iron Oxide Nanoparticles Photoelectrode for the Conversion and Storage of Solar Energy.”
In its efforts to promote cooperation among the three universities, KAIST plans to send six students to MIT and one student to Technion for joint research.
Professor Il-Doo Kim, who organized the symposium said, “We believe this kind of international gathering will serve as an opportunity for scholars from leading universities to share their expertise in material science and help them better understand on the recent trends in nanoscience and its related technology.”
2015.08.12 View 9068 -
KAIST Agrees to Cooperate with Three Hospitals in the Delivery of Emergency Medical Services
KAIST signed an agreement with three major hospitals in Korea, the National Police Hospital, Seoul National University Hospital in Bundang, and the Armed Forces Capital Hospital, to respond to national emergency situations such as the outbreak of epidemic diseases.
The signing ceremony for the agreement took place on July 27, 2015, at the JW Marriott Hotel in Seoul.
Under the agreement, the four institutions will cooperate in conducting research in basic medical science to develop treatments and vaccines, building a system to deliver emergency medical services including the establishment of preventive measures against epidemics, and providing emergency medical assistance to under-developed countries.
This agreement was initiated by the Institute of Disaster Studies at KAIST.
President Steve Kang of KAIST said, “Korean society has recently experienced the importance of building a network of medical intuitions and research universities to handle national emergency situations when Middle East Respiratory Syndrome hits the nation hard. We need to prepare for epidemics and biological disasters, and this agreement is the first step towards serving such need.”
From the left to the right in the picture are: President Hong-Soon Lee of the National Police Hospital, President Steve Kang of KAIST, President Myung-Chul Lee of the Armed Forces Capital Hospital, and President Ho-Sung Han of Seoul National University Hospital in Bundang.
2015.07.31 View 5415 -
KAIST Undergraduate Students Volunteer in Ethiopia
World Friends (WF), one of the undergraduate student clubs at KAIST, offer students opportunities to volunteer in underdeveloped regions and countries. This year the World Friends team travels to Ethiopia from July 9 to August 17, 2015.
The aim of this trip is to help Ethiopian students fill gaps in their knowledge of information technology and encourage KAIST students build leadership skills through volunteer activities. Twenty-eight students will make the trip.
KAIST students will visit the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology and the Adama Science and Technology University, as well as some local high and elementary schools in Addis Ababa, where they will run computer classes related to the basics of information technology such as C Language, Java Programming, Photoshop, MS Office, and Windows.
The volunteers will offer Adama Science and Technology University students an advanced computer course to prepare them to participate in the ACM-ICPC, an international computer programming competition for university students.
KAIST students will also introduce Korean culture to Ethiopian students including K-pop, Korean cuisine and fashion, Korean language lessons, and traditional Korean art.
The Dean of Student Affairs and Policy at KAIST, Professor Young-Hee Kim said, “I hope the students from two very different cultures will cherish this opportunity to interact with each other and contribute to narrowing down the regional disparities in the IT field.”
2015.07.10 View 8816 -
Professor Kyoungsik Yu Receives the Young IT Engineer Award from IEEE and IEIE of Korea
Professor Kyoungsik Yu of KAIST’s Department of Electrical Engineering is the recipient of this year’s Young IT (Information Technology) Engineer Award that was co-hosted by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea (IEIE), and Haedong Science Culture Foundation in Korea. The award was presented on June 22, 2015 at The Ramada Plaza Jeju Hotel on Jeju Island, Korea.
The Young IT Engineer Award is given to emerging scientists who have made significant contributions to the advancement of technology, society, environment, and creative education.
Professor Yu's main research interests are IT, energy, and imaging through miniaturization and integration of optoelectronic devices. His contribution to academic and technological development is reflected in his publication of more than 100 papers in international journals and conferences, which were cited over 2,200 times.
Professor Yu said, “I’m honored to receive this award and am encouraged by it. I also find the award meaningful because the United Nations has designated this year as the “International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies,” the field I have been involved in as a researcher.”
In addition to Korea, the IEEE has jointly hosted and presented this award to researchers in countries such as Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Singapore, and Italy.
2015.06.22 View 12862 -
World Renowned Wireless Technology Experts Gathered in KAIST
KAIST hosted the 2015 IEEE WoW from June 5 to 6, 2015
Wireless power transfer technologies, such as wireless electric vehicles, trains and batteries, are increasingly in use. A conference, The 2015 IEEE WoW (Workshop on Wireless Power), was held in KI Building for two days starting June 5, 2015 to exchange ideas on the new trends and issues of the world wireless power technology.
The wireless power conference hosted by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), IEEE WoW, was sponsored by its societies, PELS, IAS, IES, VTS, MAG, and PES.
This year’s conference took place in Korea for the first time and was titled “IEEE PELS Workshop on Emerging Technologies: Wireless Power.” The event was attended by around 200 experts in wireless power from 15 countries to discuss the international standards and current trends.
Keynote speakers were President Don Tan of IEEE; Professor Grant Covic of the University of Auckland; Andrew Daga, the CEO at Momentum Dynamics Corporation; Professor Ron Hui of the City University of Hong Kong; and Jung Goo Cho, the CEO of Green Power Technologies.
The forum included plenary speaking sessions on “The Futures of EV and Power Electronics,” “Development of IPT at the University of Auckland,” “Interoperable Solution for Wireless EV Charging,” “Development of IPT for Factory Automation,” “Commercialization of High Power WPT,” and “WPT: From Directional Power to Omni-directional Power.”
Notably, KAIST Professor Dong-Ho Cho, responsible for KAIST’s On-Line Electric Vehicle (OLEV) development, spoke on “The Development of Shaped Magnetic Field Systems for EVs and Trains” to introduce the KAIST OLEV bus and OLEV trains developed in cooperation with Korea Railroad Research Institute.
The Dialog Sessions on “The Futures of Wireless Electric Vehicles” were led by John M. Miller of JNJ Miller and “Road Charged EV and WPT Regulation and Standard for EV in Japan” by Yoichi Hori of University of Tokyo.
The General Chair of this year’s IEEE WoW, KAIST Professor Chun T. Rim said, “This forum serves a great assistance to the industry using wireless power technology in areas such as smartphones, home appliances, Internet of Things, and wearable devices.”
2015.05.29 View 10088 -
KAIST and Audi Korea Sign a Memorandum of Understanding to Establish a Startup Incubator
For the next five years, Audi Korea will provide USD 250,000 for the startup program.
KAIST recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Audi Korea to establish a student-led startup program, the Audi-KAIST Innovation Lounge, to promote design and product development on May 19, 2015, at the KAIST Institute of Entrepreneurship on campus.
Directed by Professor Sang-Min Bae of the Industrial Design Department (IDD), the Audi-KAIST Innovation Lounge will operate a global business incubator where IDD undergraduate and graduate students cultivate their entrepreneurship skills and explore business opportunities to develop commercially-applicable product designs. Audi Korea will invest USD 250,000 in the Innovation Lounge project for the next five years.
Students will receive support from the Lounge to turn their ideas, class assignments, and graduation theses into business products through a full cycle of the product development process such as inquiry, prototype development, and commercialization. The Lounge will also provide students with mentoring services from industry professionals and experts who can assist the students in finding design solutions and building prototypes using 3D printers.
The Dean of IDD, Kun-Pyo Lee, said, “Audi has been known for its initiatives which blend technological innovations into design. Likewise, our department offers students an integrative approach to design education and research which incorporates human factors and technology as important features in the design process. I believe that the Audi-KAIST Innovation Lounge will help us lead such efforts in the future.”
Professor Bae added, “This MOU is quite significant because it shows an excellent collaboration between academia and industry. Ideas created in universities should not be left to languish as just an idea or research. Rather, they should be utilized as ways to serve the needs of our society, and to do so, it is important for the government and companies to pay more attention to these interactions taking place between academia and private sectors.”
The Head of Marketing at Audi Korea, Jorg Dietzel, said, “As seen in our corporate slogan, "Advancement through Technology," Audi has grown through numerous technological innovations. I hope Audi Korea can contribute to the support of KAIST students from the Industrial Design Department to realize their dreams as future entrepreneurs and bring more innovative ideas to their field.”
Picture: Jorg Dietzel (fifth from the left), the Head of Marketing at Audi Korea, and Kun-Pyo Lee (sixth from the left), the Dean of Industrial Design Department, KAIST, pose together right after signing an agreement to create the Audi-KAIST Innovation Lounge on May 19, 2015.
2015.05.22 View 10344 -
KAIST to Host Conference on the Financial Technology Industry
To take place in the Korea Federation of Banks building on May 21, 2015, Seoul
Around 200 individuals to be present including Oh-Kyu Kwon, the former Minister of Finance and Economy and Chang-Hyun Yun, the former president of Korea Institute of Finance
KAIST will hold a conference to discuss prospects for Korea’s financial technology industry (FinTech) and to address the rapid changes taking place in both national and global finance markets.
The conference will be held in the Convention Hall of the Korea Federation of Banks building in Myeongdong, Seoul on May 21, 2015 with a theme entitled “The Challenge and the Task of Korean FinTech Industry in the Global Finance Market.”
Around 200 individuals including Oh-Kyu Kwon, the former Minister of Finance and Economy, Jiwon Jung, a member of a standing committee of Financial Services Commission, and Steve Kang, the President of KAIST will attend the meeting.
The term “FinTech” originates from the combination of two words, finance and technology, to describe a new form of financial system based on Information Technology (IT). The precise definition and boundary of FinTech is not fully established yet, but this will provide Korea with an opportunity to take the lead in the finance industry with its cutting-edge IT.
The conference will focus on the methods by which Korean FinTech companies can acquire a competitive edge in the global finance market. The keynote speaker, Tong-Suk Kim, the Dean of College of Business, KAIST, will speak about “The Challenge and the Task of Korean FinTech.” The talk will emphasize how the FinTech industry can create an innovative industry, destroying the existing paradigm of payment system and Internet-only banks.
The keynote speech will be followed by a talk on “The Requirements for Establishing Korean FinTech Ecosystem” by Jong-Hyun Kim, a researcher at Woori Finance Research Institute, Korea.
Additional talks, which will be given by KAIST professors, are:
“Korean Economy and the Role of FinTech” by Professor Young-Sun Kwon of the Department Business and Technology Management;
“Korean FinTech in ICT Perspective” by Professor Yoon-Joon Lee of the Department of Computer Science;
“The Current State and Possibilities of Korean FinTech” by Professor Byung-Tae Lee of the School of Management Engineering; and
“The Task and Challenge of Promoting FinTech Industry” by Professor Byung-Chun Kim of the School of Management Engineering.
Also, Professor Chang-Hyun Yoon of the School of Business Administration, University of Seoul, will give a talk on “The Crisis in Korean Finance Industry and the Role of FinTech.”
The conference will also hold a discussion session on “The Promotion Methods for Korean FinTech Industry.” Participants for the discussion will include Jae-Sung Song from the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Dong-Hwan Kim from the Financial Services Commission, Jeon Jin from Samsung Economic Research Institute (SERI), Hyo-Jin Lee of 8Percent, In-Chang Hwang from the Korea Insurance Research Institute, and Jae-Kyu Lee from Koscom.
Byung-Chun Kim, the Director of KAIST’s Financial Engineering Research Center, who organized the FinTech conference said, “FinTech industry will evolve from simply attempting to attract consumers to understanding the lifestyle patterns of consumers to provide customized service and information.”
2015.05.20 View 10469 -
Professor Rim Presents at IAEA Workshop in Vienna
Professor Chun-Taek Rim of the Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering at KAIST recently attended the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s workshop on the Application of Wireless Technologies in Nuclear Power Plant Instrumentation and Control System. It took place on March 30-April 2, 2015, in Vienna, Austria.
Representing Korea, Professor Rim gave a talk entitled “Highly Reliable Wireless Power and Communications under Severe Accident of Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs).” About 20 industry experts from 12 countries such as AREVA (France), Westinghouse (US), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US), Hitachi (Japan), and ENEA (Italy) joined the meeting.
The IAEA hosted the workshop to explore the application of wireless technology for the operation and management of NPPs. It formed a committee consisting of eminent professionals worldwide in NPP instrumentation and control systems, communications, and nuclear power to examine this issue in-depth and to conduct various research projects for the next three years.
In particular, the committee will concentrate its research on improving the reliability and safety of using wireless technology, not only in the normal operation of nuclear plants but also in extreme conditions such as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. The complementation, economic feasibility, and standardization of NPPs when applying wireless technology will be also discussed.
Professor Rim currently leads the Nuclear Power Electronics
and Robotics Lab at KAIST (http://tesla.kaist.ac.kr/index_eng.php?lag=eng).
Picture 1: Professors Rim presents his topic at the IAEA Workshop in Vienna.
Picture 2: The IAEA Workshop Participants
2015.04.07 View 13547 -
Mystery in Membrane Traffic How NSF Disassembles Single SNAR Complex Solved
KAIST researchers discovered that the protein N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor (NSF) unravels a single SNARE complex using one round ATP turnover by tearing the complex with a single burst, contradicting a previous theory that it unwinds in a processive manner.
In 2013, James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman, and Thomas C. Südhof won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of molecular machineries for vesicle trafficking, a major transport system in cells for maintaining cellular processes. Vesicle traffic acts as a kind of “home-delivery service” in cells. Vesicles package and deliver materials such as proteins and hormones from one cell organelle to another. Then it releases its contents by fusing with the target organelle’s membrane. One example of vesicle traffic is in neuronal communications, where neurotransmitters are released from a neuron. Some of the key proteins for vesicle traffic discovered by the Nobel Prize winners were N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor (NSF), alpha-soluble NSF attachment protein (α-SNAP), and soluble SNAP receptors (SNAREs).
SNARE proteins are known as the minimal machinery for membrane fusion. To induce membrane fusion, the proteins combine to form a SNARE complex in a four helical bundle, and NSF and α-SNAP disassemble the SNARE complex for reuse. In particular, NSF can bind an energy source molecule, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and the ATP-bound NSF develops internal tension via cleavage of ATP. This process is used to exert great force on SNARE complexes, eventually pulling them apart. However, although about 30 years have passed since the Nobel Prize winners’ discovery, how NSF/α-SNAP disassembled the SNARE complex remained a mystery to scientists due to a lack in methodology.
In a recent issue of Science, published on March 27, 2015, a research team, led by Tae-Young Yoon of the Department of Physics at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and Reinhard Jahn of the Department of Neurobiology of the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, reports that NSF/α-SNAP disassemble a single SNARE complex using various single-molecule biophysical methods that allow them to monitor and manipulate individual protein complexes.
“We have learned that NSF releases energy in a burst within 20 milliseconds to “tear” the SNARE complex apart in a one-step global unfolding reaction, which is immediately followed by the release of SNARE proteins,” said Yoon.
Previously, it was believed that NSF disassembled a SNARE complex by unwinding it in a processive manner. Also, largely unexplained was how many cycles of ATP hydrolysis were required and how these cycles were connected to the disassembly of the SNARE complex.
Yoon added, “From our research, we found that NSF requires hydrolysis of ATPs that were already bound before it attached to the SNAREs—which means that only one round of an ATP turnover is sufficient for SNARE complex disassembly. Moreover, this is possible because NSF pulls a SNARE complex apart by building up the energy from individual ATPs and releasing it at once, yielding a “spring-loaded” mechanism.”
NSF is a member of the ATPases associated with various cellular activities family (AAA+ ATPase), which is essential for many cellular functions such as DNA replication and protein degradation, membrane fusion, microtubule severing, peroxisome biogenesis, signal transduction, and the regulation of gene expression. This research has added valuable new insights and hints for studying AAA+ ATPase proteins, which are crucial for various living beings.
The title of the research paper is “Spring-loaded unraveling of a single SNARE complex by NSF in one round of ATP turnover.” (DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa5267)
Youtube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqTSYHtyHWE&feature=youtu.be
Picture 1. Working model of how NSF/α-SNAP disassemble a single SNARE complex
Picture 2. After neurotransmitter release, NSF disassembles a single SNARE complex using a single round of ATP turnover in a single burst reaction.
2015.03.28 View 11278