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Int'l Herald Tribune Carries Feature Story on KAIST
International Herald Tribune carried a feature story on KAIST"s ongoing reform efforts on the front page of its Jan. 19-20 edition. The following is the full text of the report.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/18/asia/school.php
South Korean science prepares to take on the world
By Choe Sang-Hun
Friday, January 18, 2008
DAEJEON, South Korea: In Professor Cho Dong Ho"s laboratory at Kaist, South Korea"s top science and technology university, researchers are trying to develop technology that could let you fold a notebook-size electronic display and carry it in your pocket like a handkerchief.
It"s too early to say when something like this might be commercially available. But the experiment has already achieved one important breakthrough: it has mobilized professors from eight departments to collaborate on an idea proposed by a student.
This arrangement is almost unheard of in South Korea, where the norm is for a senior professor to dictate research projects to his own cloistered team. But it"s only one change afoot at this government-financed university, which has ambitions to transform the culture of South Korean science, and more.
"When we first got the student"s idea on what a future display should look like, we thought it was crazy, stuff from science fiction," said Cho, director of Kaist"s Institute for Information Technology Convergence. "But under our new president, we are being urged to try things no one else is likely to."
That university president is Suh Nam Pyo, 71, a mechanical engineer who used to be an administrator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and who is spearheading closely watched changes that are expected to have ramifications far beyond this campus 90 minutes by car south of Seoul.
His moves so far, from requiring professors to teach in English to basing student admissions on factors other than test scores, are aimed at making the university, and by extension South Korean society, much more competitive on a world scale.
When the South Korean government hired Suh in 2006 to shake up the state-financed Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (which formally changed its name to its acronym, Kaist, on Jan. 1) the country"s leading schools faced a crisis. The old system, which guaranteed free tuition to lure promising students into science and technology, the drivers of South Korea"s industrial growth, was no longer working as well as it used to.
Prosperity was allowing those young people to choose fields of study once viewed as luxuries, like literature and history. Worse, increasing numbers were choosing to study abroad, mostly in the United States, and then not returning home. The fear was that South Korean institutions and enterprises would be gutted of expertise.
That concern was voiced at a news conference Monday by the president-elect, Lee Myung Bak, who said the educational system "isn"t producing talent that can compete globally."
Kaist, which was established in 1971 with foreign aid, has a special place in South Korean education. The military strongman Park Chung Hee recruited the brightest young people to train there as scientists and engineers. Villagers put up a large banner to celebrate whenever a local child was admitted.
"When I was a student here in the mid-1980s, some students stopped before the national flag at the library in the morning and observed a moment of silence, vowing to dedicate ourselves to the nation"s industrial development," said Cho Byung Jin, a professor of electrical engineering.
Since his arrival, Suh has become the most talked-about campus reformer in South Korea by taking on some of Kaist"s most hallowed traditions.
In a first for a Korean university, Suh has insisted that all classes eventually be taught in English, starting with those aimed at freshmen.
"I want Kaist students to work all over the world," Suh said last week. "I don"t want them to be like other Koreans who attend international conferences and have a lunch among themselves because they are afraid of speaking in English."
The move to English supports another of his changes: opening undergraduate degree programs to talented non-Koreans. Last year Kaist filled 51 of its 700 admission slots with foreign students on full scholarships. Meanwhile, he has ended free tuition for all; any student whose grade average falls below a B must pay up to $16,000 a year.
"My dream is to make Kaist a globalized university, one of the best universities in the world," he said.
In what may have been his most daring move, the university denied tenure to 15 of the 35 professors who applied last September. Until then, few if any applicants had failed tenure review in the university"s 36-year history.
In this education-obsessed country, Suh"s actions have been watched intensely for their broader impact. More than 82 percent of all high school graduates go on to higher education. What university a South Korean attends in his 20s can determine his position and salary in his 50s, a factor behind recent expos?of prominent South Koreans who faked prestigious diplomas.
The system is widely deplored but seldom challenged. From kindergarten, a child"s life is shaped largely by a single goal: doing well in examinations, particularly the all-important national college entrance exam. High school students plod through rote learning from dawn to dusk. Tutoring by "exam doctors" is a multibillion-dollar industry. During vacations, students attend private cram schools, which numbered 33,000 in 2006.
One result is a disciplined and conformist work force, an advantage when South Korea rapidly industrialized by copying technology from others. But now, with the country trying to climb the innovation ladder, the rigid school system is proving a stumbling block.
The nation"s highly hierarchical ways are often cited to explain how Hwang Woo Suk, the disgraced South Korean scientist who claimed he had produced stems cells from a cloned human embryo, could fabricate research findings with the complicity of junior associates.
The ambitious head overseas. Last year, 62,392 South Korean students were enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities, making them the third-largest foreign student group, after Indians (83,833) and Chinese (67,723), according to the U.S. Institute of International Education.
Some start earlier. About 35,000 South Korean children below college age go abroad each year, most to the United States to learn English.
Against this backdrop, Kaist has been experimenting with test-free admissions. For this year"s class, it brought applicants in for interviews and debates and make presentations while professors looked for creativity and leadership.
"About 20 percent of the students who formerly would have won admission didn"t make it under our new guidelines," Suh said. "We are looking for rough diamonds."
Challenging the status quo can be risky.
The Science and Technology Ministry, which oversees Kaist, had first looked outside South Korea for someone to lead the changes, choosing the Nobel physics laureate Robert Laughlin, who became the first foreigner to head a South Korean university in 2004. But he returned to Stanford University within two years, after the faculty rebelled against him for attempting some of the same changes Suh has instituted, accusing him, among other things, of insensitivity to Korean ways.
Suh"s Korean roots and experience shield him from such charges. He did not emigrate to the United States until he was 18 and has worked at Korean universities as well as serving as assistant director at the U.S. National Science Foundation in the 1980s and head of MIT"s department of mechanical engineering from 1991 to 2001.
"Reform entails sacrifices, but even if we don"t reform, there will be sacrifices," Suh said. "The difference is that if we don"t reform and don"t encourage competition, it"s the best people who are sacrificed."
So far, Suh"s innovations have mostly received favorable reviews.
Education Minister Kim Shi Il called them a "very desirable way of making Korea"s universities more competitive globally." The newspaper JoongAng Daily (which publishes an English-language version in partnership with the IHT) praised him for "smashing the iron rice bowls" (ending guaranteed job security) for professors and said, "We must learn from Kaist."
Ewan Stewart, a British physicist who has taught at Kaist since 1999, said, "Many of the things President Suh is saying were things I felt should have been said a long time ago."
Chung Joo Yeon, a first-year student, said she accepted the need for classes in English, but complained that some professors had no experience teaching in the language.
But Cho, the electrical engineering professor, said: "It"s no longer a matter of choice. If we want to maintain our school"s standards, we must draw talents from countries around the world, and that means we must conduct our classes in English."
Meanwhile, Lee has promised that as president he will give universities more autonomy by taking the "government"s hands off" how they select their students.
2008.01.23 View 15616 -
Three Professors Selected as IEEE Fellows
Three Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)’s professors, Ju-Jang Lee, Yong-Hee Lee, and Hoi-Jun Yoo, were selected as a part of the 2008 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc (IEEE)’s “Fellows.” A Fellow is the highest level of membership given only to those “with an extraordinary record of accomplishments” in their field of study. Although some IEEE memberships can be gained freely by all, the Fellow status is bestowed only by the IEEE Board of Directors.
Professor Ju-Jang Lee was awarded the Fellow status “for contributions to intelligent robust control and robotics.” Robust control is a system’s stable maintenance under many inputs in a dynamic environment. A part of KAIST’s Electrical Engineering Department, Professor Ju-Jang Lee has conducted successful research in these fields, and has published 538 papers. He also holds many patents in and outside of the country, and is the General Chair for two upcoming IEEE conferences in 2008 and 2009.
Professor Yong-Hee Lee of KAIST’s Physics Department was recognized for his “contributions to photonic devices based upon vertical cavity surface emitting lasers and photonic crystals.” Photonic devices are those that allow the practical use of photons, and photon crystals are structures that affect the motion of photons. Professor Yong-Hee Lee is an expert in the field of Photonics and his works have been cited over 2500 times. He is also an outstanding speaker, giving over 30 lectures in front of international audiences in the past 5 years, and receiving The Distinguished Lecturer’s Award from IEEE.
Professor Hoi-Jun Yoo was granted the prestigious Fellow status for his “contributions to low-power and high-speed VLSI design.” VLSI stands for ‘very large scale integration’ and refers to the skill for packing a huge number of semiconductors on an integrated circuit. Professor Lee’s Fellow status is noteworthy in that he studied, worked, and researched solely in Korea. He is also the youngest of the three KAIST professors to be granted membership in the class of 2008 Fellowship. IEEE also recognized Professor Yoo as the most frequent publisher during the past 8 years.
IEEE, originally concentrating on Electric Engineering, has now branched into many related fields. It is a nonprofit organization, and its aim is to be the world"s leading professional association for the advancement of technology. For its Fellow Class of 2008, 295 members were chosen; which is less that 0.1% of their total members.By KAIST Herald on December, 2007
2007.12.21 View 17071 -
Prof. Chung To Make a Keynote Address at Overseas Seminar
Prof. Chung To Make a Keynote Address at Overseas Seminar
“Instilling Korea’s design promotion policies into Chile”Prof. Kyung-Won Chung will make a keynote address at a design policy seminar in Chile
Prof. Kyung-Won Chung, Department of Industrial Design, will make a keynote address at a seminar named ‘public policies for design industries’, which will be held at Santiago, Chile, July 24 -25.
In the lecture entitled ‘The development model of public policies for design promotion ? Korea’s experiences’, Prof. Chung will present the relationship between national economic development policy and design industry promotion strategy with some real case studies.
The seminar co-hosted by the Technology Cooperation Agency (SERCOTEC) and the Economy Development Agency (CDRFO) of Chile is intended to enable Chilean government to set up appropriate policies to effectively foster design industries for the enhancement of small and medium businesses’ competitiveness.
Prof. Chung has served as the president of Korea Institute of Design Promotion (KIDP) from Feb 2000 thru May 2003.
2007.07.24 View 12683 -
Ki-Won Lee Receives Best Student Paper Award
Ki-Won Lee Receives Best Student Paper Award
Ki-Won Lee, a doctoral student of Materials Science & Engineering, has received the Best Student Paper Award ‘Motorola Fellowship Award’ at 2007 Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC).
Lee’s paper is about a new bonding process of anisotropic conductive film using ultrasonic wave, which applies ultrasonic wave, instead of thermal compression, at the room temperature to reduce the process time from ten to three seconds.
The recipients of Motorola Fellowship Award are selected by IEEE Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology Society, and Motorola awards special scholarship to recipients. The ECTC is the world’s largest yearly conference concerning electronic packaging technologies with more than 1,000 attendees and more than 300 presented papers.
2007.07.02 View 16421 -
Emeritus Professor Lee Dies
Jeong-Oh Lee, Emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering, died of his chronic disease on June 15, 2007 at his age of 76.
The late Lee began his lecturing career at Mechanical Engineering Department in 1973 and had made considerable devotions to the education and development of mechanical engineering for 24 years. As the former Minister of Science and Technology, former President of Korea Institute of Science and Technology, and former President of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, he also has made significant contributions to the development of Korean science and technology.
Particularly, he played key roles in vitalizing Daeduk Research Complex (DRC) by planning and executing the movement of government-funded institutes despite the inactive research atmosphere in the early 1980s. He also set up the Extended Council for Technology Promotion, consisting of many distinguished persons from diverse fields under the supervision of the President, to make significant contributions to the promotion and spread of technology innovation among governmental and civil enterprises. He received Cheongjo Geunjeong Medal in 1985 and never stopped his devotion to the education of young students even after his retirement in 1997.
<Funeral Notice>- Date: Sunday, June 17, 2007 at 7 am.- Place: Eulji University Hospital, Daejeon- Graveyard: Cheonan graveyard- Bereaved family Wife Ok-Hyang Kang Son Jong-Sun Lee, Professor of Handong University Han-Sun Lee, LG Chemicals Daughter Myung-Ae Lee Son-in-law Young-Soo Lee, Korea Institute of Industrial Technology- Contact Point: C.P. 019.480.2451 (Han-Sun Lee)
2007.06.18 View 14461 -
KAIST Graduate Selected As Winner of IEEE Outstanding Young Engineer Award
- First Korean winner of IEEE Outstanding Young Engineer Award
Dr. Myung-Jin Rhim, Bachelor, Master, and Ph.D of KAIST, has been selected to receive 2007 Outstanding Young Engineer Award by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology (CPMT) Society. Dr. Rhim will be the first Korean winner of the award.
Dr. Rhim received his Ph.D of Materials Science & Engineering at KAIST in 2001 and has made outstanding research outputs, such as 28 papers at international journals covered by Science Citation Index (SCI) and 12 international patents. He has been also listed in Marquis Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who of Emerging Leaders, Who’s Who in Asia, and Outstanding Intellectual of the 21st Century, 21st Century Award for Achievement published by the International Biographical Centre of Cambridge, England.
IEEE CPMT Society has yearly awarded the Outstanding Young Engineer Award to a scientist or engineer of electronic components, packaging, and manufacturing technology prior to his or her 35th birthday in recognition of his or her research achievements. Dr. Rhim is now in his postdoctoral program at Georgia Institute of Technology in USA.
2007.06.14 View 15267 -
Largest Number of Teams Selected From KAIST at 2007 LG Global Challenger Contest
Largest Number of Teams Selected From KAIST at 2007 LG Global Challenger Contest
The largest number of teams has been selected from KAIST at 2007 LG Global Challenger Contest
Despite of the record high competitive rate of 30/ 800, the largest number of teams has been selected from KAIST at 2007 LG Global Challenger Contest.
LG Global Challenger Contest is an exploration program where undergraduate and graduate students perform explorations on their own schedules and share the results with the public online.
Thus far, about 1,500 students from 410 teams have participated in the contest, and the contest is now regarded as the most representative overseas exploration program among university students, showing the average competitive rate of 1/ 20.
Exploration teams are selected by thorough examination and the members of selected teams have to complete the preliminary education program. The exploration teams will perform two-week overseas exploration on their own schedule during the summer vacation and their exploration activities will be relayed through the official web site of the contest by the designated team for online relay.
The exploration teams are obliged to submit the result reports, and the winners of the prize for good reports will be granted scholarship and employment privileges. The followings are the selected teams from KAIST:
Name: U-rekaTopic: U-Eco City, Advanced city where nature and human are well harmonizedMembers: A-Chim Chang (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering)Hyuk-Il Cho (Department of Computer Sciences)Jung-Hyun Hong (Department of Industrial Engineering)Seung-Kyun Ryu (Department of Computer Sciences)
Name: TWIMTopic: The trend of unmanned ground vehicle development and its influence on unmanned societyMembers: Moon-Jung Byun (Department of Mechanical Engineering)Joon-Seok Park (Department of Electrical Engineering)Hye-Sun Hyun (Department of Electrical Engineering)Jong-Hoon Kim (Department of Electrical Engineering)
Team Impediment-free ODATopic: Future way of Korean ODAMembers: Joon-Youn Kim (Department of Industrial Engineering) Jae-Min Kim (Department of Industrial Engineering)Yoon-Jung Choi (Department of Industrial Engineering)Seul-Ki Lee (Department of Industrial Engineering)
2007.06.12 View 15567
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Prof. Lee Plants Commemorative Flower at NUAA
Prof. Lee Plants Commemorative Flower at NUAA
Professor In Lee of Aerospace Engineering planted a commemorative flower - Hibiscus, the national flora of South Korea - at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA) on May 25, 2007. While some Chinese Nobel laureates have planted commemorative trees, Professor Lee is the first foreigner who has planted a commemorative flower at NUAA. His planting is expected to contribute to opening academic and research exchanges between South Korea and China.
NUAA is the top university of China in the field of Aerospace Engineering and a technical university consisting of 2,800 faculty and staff and 26,000 students.
NUAA has colleges of Aerospace Engineering, Science, Engineering, Management, Art, Humanity, Foreign Language, and International Education and actively promotes international academic and research exchanges and international student program.
2007.06.12 View 12131 -
Prof. Whang Named Distinguished Database Profile by ACM SIGMOD
Professor Kyu-Young Whang of Computer Sciences has been named as Distinguished Database Profile (DDP) by Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Management Of Data (ACM SIGMOD).
DDP is a section of ACM SIGMOD Record that introduces researchers who have made significant global contributions in database field.
Thus far, about 20 researchers including Jeff Ullman and Jim Gray have been named as DDPs for their achievements such as establishment of new theories and technologies in database field, and Prof. Hwang is the first researcher named as DDP in the Asian-Pacific region.
Prof. Whang’s interview (directed by Marianne Winslett, Professor of UIUC, and Eric Bina, co-founder of Netscape) can be seen on http://www.sigmod.org/interviews and will be published at ACM SIGMOD Record in 2008.
2007.06.07 View 13265 -
KAIST Students Wins Gold Prize at Technical Idea Contest
KAIST Students Wins Gold Prize at Technical Idea Contest
- Receive the gold prize at the 3rd High-Tech Daejeon Technical Idea Contest for Company Establishment- For the development of a new system to convert complex web page addresses to short and meaningful addresses
Sang-Hoon Kim, Song-Hwa Chae and Dong-Hun Lee of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering won the gold prize at the prospective company establishment part in the 3rd High-Tech Daejeon Technical Idea Contest for Company Establishment on May 21 for their valuable development of ‘Web Page Address Clipping System’.
So far, simplified web page addresses include special characters, which make the addresses long and complex. That is, the current address simplification service combines meaningless random words and numerals to create addresses when web page addresses are entered. In this case, the addresses are not easy to share with others and reuse several times since they are difficult to memorize.
However, the ‘Web Page Address Clipping System’ shortens meaningless long addresses. In addition, the improved address simplification service will provide user’s own addresses, and statistics and ranking to clipping addresses frequently used.
Based on this technology, Kim and Chae are now preparing to open a company called ‘URLClip’ under the auspice of Professor Tae-Yong Yang and Researcher In-Soo Kim, KAIST Entrepreneurship Center. They are also expanding their service areas onto clipping library for individual users, host name services for enterprises, etc. and developing tool bar, RSS service (RSS is an acronym of RDF (or Rich) Site Summary. It refers to a service that automatically and easily provides frequently updated contents such as news and blogs to users), etc. to improve users’ conveniences.
URLClip (http://www.urlclip.net) is a next generation portal site, which is expected to provide a variety of individualized services based on Web Page Address Clipping Service and to be used by many enterprises as well as individual users who wish to enhance their access to useful contents.
“Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Professor Sun-Won Park has offered lots of helps and supports, so I could decide to commercialize the developed technologies. The application of this technology to real life will allow further comfortable uses of internet to users,” Kim said.
Narae Team received the best prize last April at the 2nd Pre-Star Venture Company-Opening Contest hosted by KAIST and Hanbat Univeristy, and the technology is pending a patent application.
Inquiry:Sang-Hoon Kim, Dep. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, H.P. 010-4754-9947Song-Hwa Chae, Dep. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, H.P. 010-7223-9947Home page: http://www.urlclip.netEmail: urlclip@urlclip.net
2007.06.05 View 14689 -
Research Outputs over Carbon Nanotube by Prof. Choi Selected as Research Highlight by ACS
Research Outputs over Carbon Nanotube by Prof. Choi Selected as Research Highlight by ACS
Research Outputs over Carbon Nanotube by Prof. Choi Selected as Research Highlight by ACS
A research team headed by Seong-Min Choi, a professor of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering, KAIST, has developed technologies to stably disperse carbon nanotube particles in aqueous solutions and organic solvents, essential for industrial applications of carbon nanotube, and discovered the dispersion characteristics of carbon nanotube. The research outputs have been published by ‘Advanced materials’ (19, 929, 2007), the most distinguished journal in Material Science field, and introduced as Research Highlight at the May 7th edition of ‘Heart Cut’ by the American Chemical Society (ACS).
A number of processes for industrial applications of carbon nanotube require the dispersion of carbon nanotube in aqueous solutions or organic solvents, and thus far, surfactant particles or DNAs have been used to disperse carbon nanotube particles. However, they have shortcomings of easy destruction of dispersion. In order to overcome such shortcomings, Prof. Choi’s team produced carbon nanotube particle-dispersed aqueous solutions by using surfactant particles and then polymerized surfactant particles absorbed to the surfaces of carbon nanotube in situ to develop carbon nanotube with hydrophile and safe surfaces. The functional carbon nanotube so obtained shows features of easy dispersion in aqueous solutions and organic solvents even after being processed, such as freeze drying, therefore, is expected to significantly contribute to the development of application technologies of carbon nanotubes. Tae-Hwan Kim and Chang-Woo Doh, both doctoral students, played key roles in the researches carried out under the auspices of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) as a nuclear power R&D project, and the relevant technologies were filed for patent applications.
Figures: Carbon nanotube before polymerization (left), carbon nanotube polymerized with surfactant particles (right)
2007.05.14 View 13110 -
Professor Yang Named Recipient of Dupont Science & Technology Award
Professor Yang Named Recipient of Dupont Science & Technology Award
- Named as the recipient of Dupont Science & Technology Award of 2007- In recognition of his development of optical?bio-functional photonic crystal structures through Self-assembly of nanoparticles
Seung-Man Yang, a professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering of KAIST (President Nam Pyo Suh) and the president of the National Creative Research Initiatives Center for Photon and Fluid Integrated Circuit by the Ministry of Science and Technology, has been named as the recipient of Dupont Science & Technology Award.
Dupont Korea, associate of Dupont, a world-class science firm, has established and conferred ‘Dupont Science & Technology Award’ since 2002 to promote basic sciences and industrial development of Korea. Dupont Science & Technology Awards are awarded to scientists of universities or state-run institutes who have made outstanding R&D achievements in the fields of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Material Science and Material Engineering within five years. Dupont Korea announced on May 2, 2007 that Professor Yang is the recipient of the award this year, following the strict examination by the Koran Academy of Science and Technology (KAST).
The reason for the award is Professor Yang’s development of prototype optical?bio-functional photonic crystal structures that can process a huge amount of data, resulting from a study that has discovered the principle of Self-assembly where multifunctional nanoparticles are manufactured and assembled for themselves.
Professor Yang’s recent research result about photon structures and nano patterns was published by Nature (February 2, 2006 edition); posted on Heart-Cut, the portal site of the American Chemistry Society (ACS), as highlight paper two times (November 4, 2002 and May 1, 2006); and introduced at Research/Researcher of MRS Bulletin by the U.S. Material Research Society (MRS) as main paper in December 2003. Professor Yang is very famous in Korea and abroad for the excellences of his research achievements and has made request seminars at Harvard University, University of Wisconsin, Caltech, University of California, etc. He is also invited speaker and session organizer of the MRS and the SPIE.
2007.05.08 View 17099