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KAIST President Suh Honored with 2009 ASME Medal
KAIST President Nam-Pyo Suh has chosen as the 2009 winner of the ASME Medal presented by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, university authorities said on Thursday (July 2).
President Suh received the honor for "seminal contributions to the advancement of engineering through research in tribology, polymer processing, metal processing, design and manufacturing, as well as contributions to engineering education and research infrastructure."
The selection of President Suh was unanimously approved by the 13-member Board of Governors of the ASME. Suh became the first scientist of Asian descent in the award"s 89-year-long history.
Founded in 1880, the ASME is a non-profit professional organization promoting the art, science and practice of mechanical and multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences. The organization is known for setting codes and standards for mechanical devices. As of 2009, it has 120,000 members worldwide.
Only one ASME medal is awarded annually to recognize "eminently distinguished achievement." The award consists of a $17,000 honorarium, a gold medal, certificate and travel supplement for two days. It will be presented to President Suh during the 2009 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, which will be held in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, November 13-10, 2009.
President Suh is an internationally known educator, engineer and inventor. Born in Korea, he immigrated to the U.S. in 1954 to join his father, who was teaching at Harvard. He earned both his bachelor"s and master"s degrees from MIT before coming to Carnegie Tech for his doctoral education in mechanical engineering.
While teaching at MIT, he founded the MIT-Industry Polymer Processing Program in 1973 and the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity. He left these positions in 1984 to serve with the U.S. National Science Foundation as its assistant director for engineering, until 1988.
He invented many new materials, products and manufacturing processes, earning more than 60 U. S. patents and founding several companies. He has written seven books and more than 300 scholarly papers. Among dozens of honors throughout his career, President Suh most recently received the 2007 Lifetime Achievement from the Society of Plastics Engineers.
The ASME conducts one of the world"s largest technical publishing operations through its ASME Press, holds numerous technical conferences and hundreds of professional development courses each year, and sponsors numerous outreach and educational programs.
2009.07.02 View 12703 -
USC Professor Appointed New Dean of KAIST College of Business
Ravi Kumar, former vice dean of the Graduate and International Program at the University of Southern California, has been appointed as dean of the KAIST College of Business, the university announced on Tuesday (June 30).
Dr. Kumar has been a professor of information and operations management at the Marshall School of Business, USC. He is widely known for his research on global operations, particularly in improving operational performance through cellular design and integrated decision-making with marketing and information technology.
KAIST President Nam-Pyo Suh said: "We are fortunate to have Prof. Kumar as the new Dean of the College of Business. He has made many important contributions to the USC business school, especially in adding international dimensions to the school"s activities. He has established an impeccable reputation as a scholar and visionary. We expect that he will display great leadership in making the KAIST College of Business one of the best schools of its kind in the world."
Prof. Kumar received his bachelor degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1974, master degree from the University of Texas, Arlington, in 1976 and doctorate degree from Northwestern University in 1981.
His papers have been published in Management Science, Marketing Science, Journal of Economic Theory, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Operations Management and Journal of Management Information Systems. He serves as a senior editor on the Board of Production and Operations management and Operations management Educational Review.
He has won several awards for teaching excellence at both the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and USC. They included the Outstanding Educator Award and the Golden Apple Teaching Award.
Prof. Kumar has extensive international consulting experiences with Rolls Royce, BMW, Daimler Benz Aerospace, ABB, Ericsson, BAS Global, Motorola, Reuters, Du Pont, Sanwa Bank, Korea First Bank, Korean Air, Infosys, Acer, Shell Hong Kong and other companies.
2009.07.01 View 12984 -
Lecture Hall Named After Venture Businessman Min-Hwa Lee
A lecture hall in the Alumni Start-Up Building on the KAIST campus was named Min-Hwa Lee Hall in a ceremony on Tuesday to pay tribute to KAIST alumnus Min-Hwa Lee"s contributions to the development of Korean venture business.
On hand at the ceremony were Sung-Woo Hong, head of the Small and Medium Business Administration, KAIST President Nam-Pyo Suh, dozens of KAIST alumni representatives, and figures from government research institutes.
Lee, who obtained his M.S. (1978) and Ph.D. (1985) in Electrical Engineering from KAIST, established a fund of 10 billion won along with other KAIST alumni in 2001 and donated it for the construction of the Alumni Start-Up Building for aspiring entrepreneurs. To remember his lofty vision, KAIST decided to name a lecture hall after him.
As a venture businessman, Lee founded the Madison, Ltd., one of the earliest venture companies in Korea, in 1985. Lee then played a leading role in the creation of the Korea Venture Industry Association in 1995, and in the establishment of KOSDAQ and the enactment of a special law for venture enterprises.
KAIST will appoint Lee as an adjunct professor in recognition of his expertise in venture business and commercialization of new inventions. Lee will teach entrepreneurship at the Graduate School of Management and the Institute for Gifted Students, a KAIST affiliate.
"Dr. Lee has made a great contribution to the development of Korean venture business. At a time when commercialization of new inventions was at an infant stage, he nurtured technology ventures and built the foundation for the proliferation of technology venture," President Suh said. "We expect that he will strive to open the generation of technologies which will lead the development of Korea in the future and become a mentor of aspiring entrepreneurs," Suh added.
2009.06.30 View 14004 -
KAIST to hold International Workshop on Flexible Displays
The 2009 KAIST International Workshop on Flexible Displays will take place at the Electrical Engineering Building on June 25, university sources said on Tuesday (June 23).
The workshop organized by the Center for Advanced Flexible Display Convergence (CAFDC) will explore the status and future vision of flexible and transparent plasma displays, which are among the key technologies for the development of the next-generation displays. There will be also discussions about technologies to realize the large-scale flexible and transparent display which is regarded as the display of the future.
Among the speakers are some of the most prominent figures in the field. Gary Eden from University of Illinois, Prof. Kunihide Tachibana from Kyoto University, and Carol Wedding, the president of Imaging Systems Tech., USA and several other well-known professors and engineers will participate in the workshop.
Professor Kyung-Cheol Choi, CAFDC chair, said: "The workshop will provide an excellent opportunity to examine the flexible and transparent plasma display technologies. It will also be a good chance to explore large-scale flexible and transparent displays from various technical viewpoints."
2009.06.24 View 16489 -
Prof. Sang-Ouk Kim Featured on the Cover of Emerging Investigator Special Issue
KAIST Prof. Sang-Ouk Kim of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering was featured on the cover of the Emerging Investigator Special Issue published by Britain"s Royal Society of Chemistry on June 21, university authorities said on Monday (June 22).
The special issue shed spotlight on 18 up-and-coming scientists who have been selected through the recommendation and rigorous screening process of the editorial and advisory boards of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The 18 scientists consist of six from the American continent, 10 from Europe, one from Japan and one from Korea.
The journal introduced Prof. Kim"s paper, titled "Highly entangled carbon nanotube (CNT) scaffolds by self-organized aqueous droplets." Kim explained in the paper that the cellular CNT demonstrated high electrical conductivity and field-emission properties, which is potentially useful for various applications in electronics and energy storage devices.
2009.06.24 View 12019 -
KAIST Senior Wins Prizes at International Design Contests
Sung-Joon Kim, a senior at the Department of Industrial Design, KAIST, has recently won the highest prize at the iF Communication Design Award held in Hanover, Germany, university officials said on Monday (June 3).
The prizewinning work entitled "1/2 PROJECT" introduces a donation system in which a customer buys a bottle of drink, for example, containing only a half of its price value and donate the remaining half of the value. The work which was created as part of the Samsung Design Membership was also awarded a silver prize at the International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) of the United States.
Award ceremonies of the two prizes are scheduled for in Muenchen in August and in Miami in September, respectively.
"The design project is aimed at making donation a part of everyday life by teaming up with big-name beverage makers," said Kim.
iF Communication Design Award and the IDEA are among the world"s three leading international design competitions. The other one is the Red Dot Design Award presented in Essen, Germany.
Early this year, Kim, leading a team, presented a portable life saving equipment called "Rescue Stick" to the two competitions and won high honors.
2009.06.05 View 13309 -
KAIST Signs Agreement for Industry-Academia Cooperation with KCC
KAIST signed an agreement for industry-academia cooperation with KCC, Korea"s leading supplier of building & industrial materials, on May 28, university sources said.
The agreement signed by KAIST President Nam-Pyo Suh and Mong-Jin Chung, Chairman of the KCC Business Group, calls for KAIST and KCC to conduct joint research for the development of new technologies in nano science, new materials areas and interdisciplinary areas.
Under the agreement, KCC will invest 5 billion won into the KAIST Institute for the NanoCentury over the next five years.
KCC Chairman Chung said: "Through this industry-academia cooperation agreement, we are seeking to give part of our profits back to community . We hope this agreement to contribute to the development of core technologies of the future in the new materials field, and nurturing specialized manpower."
2009.05.28 View 12325 -
Prof. Chong Unveils New Human Movement Model
A KAIST research team headed by Prof. Song Chong of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science has developed a new statistical model that simulates human mobility patterns, mimicking the way people move over the course of a day, a month or longer, university sources said on Tuesday (May 12).
The model, developed in collaboration with scientists at North Carolina State University, is the first to represent the regular movement patterns of humans using statistical data.
The model has a variety of potential uses, ranging from land use planning to public health studies on epidemic disease.
The researchers gave global positioning system (GPS) devices to approximately 100 volunteers at five locations in the U.S. and South Korea and tracked the participants" movements over time. By tracing the points where the study participants stopped, and their movement trajectories, researchers were able to determine patterns of mobility behavior.
The researchers were then able to emulate these fundamental statistical properties of human mobility into a model that could be used to represent the regular daily movement of humans. The model, called Self-similar Least Action Walk (SLAW), will have a wide array of practical applications.
The research, "SLAW: A Mobility Model for Human Walks," was presented on April 20 at the 28th IEEE Conference on Computer Communications in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The National Science Foundation of the U.S. funded the research.
2009.05.13 View 12864 -
KAIST, KHNP Sign MOU on Nuclear Technology Development
KAIST signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP) on Wednesday (May 6) to upgrade cooperation between the two organizations in nuclear power technology development.
On hand at the signing ceremony at KAIST were KAIST President Nam-Pyo Suh, KHNP President Jong-Shin Kim and other related officials.
The agreement calls for increased efficiency and synergy effect in the development of nuclear power generation by KAIST and KHNP to gain greater competitiveness in the exportation of nuclear power technologies.
KHNP is responsible for the operation of all nuclear and hydraulic power plants in Korea which supply about 40 percent of the nation"s electric power demand. It is the largest among the six power generating subsidiaries that separated from Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) in April 2001.
2009.05.07 View 10978 -
Industrial Design Senior Wins Top Award at International Forum Design
Sung-Joon Kim, a senior at the Department of Industrial Design, KAIST, has won the highest award at the International Forum Design held in Hanover, Germany, university sources said on Monday (April 13).
At the design exhibition held in February under the theme of "life, live, work," Kim presented "Rescue Stick," a portable life saving equipment and "Recovery Arm Sling," a medical treatment device, in cooperation with three students from other Korean universities. Both entries were included among the 15 works selected as the top designs.
The design competition has been organized by iF International Forum Design, known as one of the world"s three leading design exhibitions.
Kim, leader of the team, received the prize at the awarding ceremony held in Nuremberg on March 24. The award-winning designs were on display at the design fair of the Altenpflege + Propflege, a nursing care exhibition, in the same city on March 24-26.
2009.04.15 View 10783
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KAIST Prof. Park Selected as Winner of Clemson Award
Professor Tae-Gwan Park of the Department of Biological Sciences, KAIST, was chosen as the winner of the 2009 Clemson Award for Fundamental Research, university authorities said on Tuesday (April 7).
The award is the highest recognition of the Society for Biomaterials, an international organization of more than 3,000 members that promotes research in the field of biomaterials. Prof. Park is cited for his outstanding achievements in interdisciplinary research covering gene transferring, gene therapy and neogenesis. It is rare for a non-U.S. national to win the prize in the 36-year history of the award.
The award will be given to Professor Park at the Annual Meeting of the society which will be held in San Antonio, Texas, on April 22.
2009.04.09 View 11728 -
KAIST Dedicates Geocentrifuge Experiment Center
KAIST dedicated the KOCED Geo-Centrifuge Experiment Center for researches in monitoring natural disasters such as earthquake and embankment collapse through miniature simulation tests on Wednesday (April 9) after a two-year construction work.
The experiment center is part of the Korea Construction Engineering Development Collaboratory Program (KOCED) which has been sponsored by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs to build an infrastructure for construction engineering researches at a national level. The ministry plans to build a total of 5 similar centers nationwide by the end of the year.
On hand at the dedication ceremony were Jae-Choon Lee, President of the Korea Institute of Construction & Transportation Technology Evaluation and Planning, KAIST President Nam-Pyo Suh, and scores of experts and administration officials.
The construction of the five-story building on an area of about 3,328 square meters cost 8.4 billion won (US$6.3 million).
The center is expected to serve as a major laboratory in the field of geotechnical engineering. It is equipped with such state-of-the-art facilities as geocentrifuge, a useful tool for studying flow in unsaturated soil under well-controlled, repeatable conditions, a bidirectional shaking-table that can reproduce earthquake-like wave; and robots that can reproduce construction procedures by remote control.
Geocentrifuge experiment allows detecting ground and structure motions easily and rapidly by simulation tests. Thus, it is widely used for various geotechnical engineering researches such as evaluation of seismic safety, soft ground movement, slope stability analysis, etc. The causes of the embankment collapse in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 were also revealed by the geocentrifuge experiment.
The geocentrifuge research facility is available for use by outside researchers, so scientists from other universities, research institutes and corporations can perform research and test their scientific and engineering hypotheses.
The center is divided into two sections, experiment building and research building. The experiment building is composed of a geocentrifuge laboratory, model-making rooms, workshops, a geotechnical engineering laboratory and specimen storehouse, while the research building has a control room, a video conference room, an electronic library and research rooms.
2009.04.09 View 12093