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Professor Junsuk Rho Named Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Nanophotonics

Professor Junsuk Rho from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Chemical Engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) has been appointed to the prestigious role of deputy editor-in-chief of npj Nanophotonics, an international journal dedicated to the realm of nanophotonics. His tenure commenced on July 1 and its duration has not been specified. Professor Rho earned his bachelor’s, master’s, Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Seoul National University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and University of California, Berkeley respectively. His association with POSTECH dates back to 2014 when he joined the faculty. Professor Rho stands as a world-renowned scholar in the field of metamaterials which paved the way for groundbreaking advancements in photonics by defying conventional limitations imposed by light properties. His achievements have garnered recognition including the Young Scientist Award (Presidential Award) in 2019 from the Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) and the Young Engineer Award in 2022 from the National Academy of Engineering of Korea (NAEK). Notably, he became the first non-European scientist to receive the Young Scientist Award from Micro and Nano Engineering (MNE), a renowned academic society in the fields of micro and nano fields, in 2020. Active in 13 journals including Light: Science and Applications published by Springer Nature, the same publisher of the journal he now serves as deputy editor-in-chief, Professor Rho’s involvement expands to 14 scholarly journals with this latest appointment. The journal njp Nanophotonics is a novel publication by Springer Nature, the publisher responsible for well-regarded journals such as Nature and is included in its portfolio directly managed by Nature. Covering an array of nanophotonics areas, the journal aims to become a global platform fostering innovation and progress in this exciting domain.

The Rowing Team Wins at 49th Jang Bogo Flag National Rowing Championship

The rowing team at POSTECH showed exceptional performance at the 49th Jang Bogo Flag National Rowing Championship held from June 24 to July 2 at the Seonakdong River Rowing and Canoeing Stadium in the city of Busan. Notably, POSTECH’s rowing team showcased remarkable prowess by winning the university female team category and securing numerous medals including two gold medals, one silver medal, and three bronze medals in both indoor rowing and on-water events. Having been established in May 2016, the university’s rowing team squad boasts a mere 7-year history. Despite their relatively short existence, the team displayed an impressive medal tally in this competition. It is remarkable that such a young crew, less than a decade old, showcased an outstanding performance. The Jang Bogo National Rowing Championship, celebrating its 49th anniversary this year since its inception in 1975, stands as the pinnacle of rowing competition in Korea. The event featured two divisions: 1st division, comprised of professional athletes, and the 2nd division, consisting of sports enthusiasts from social clubs. The POSTECH’s rowing team participated in the latter division. Indoor- Women’s Single Sculls: Gold Medal (Jungyoon Choi) Indoor- Women’s Coxed Four: Bronze Medal (Jungyoon Choi, Younggi Lee, Ain Park, Yeji Jung) Indoor- Men’s Coxed Four: Bronze Medal (Sunggun Kwon, Chanhyung Park, Jaegook Lee, Huichang Yoon) On-water: Women’s Coxed Four (4 persons) 500m: Silver Medal (Jungyoon Choi, Younggi Lee, Ain Park, Yeji Jung / cox: Sungjae Lee) On-water: Mixed Coxed Four (4 persons) 500m: Gold Medal (Jungyoon Choi, Ain Park, Jaegook Lee, Huichang Yoon, cox: Junho Jung) On-water: Men’s Eight (8 persons) 800m: Bronze Medal (Kyuan Lee, Sungje Lee, Yoonbong Jung, Euigang Ju, Jungun Lee, Chanhyung Park, Sunggeon Kwon, Hyunjun Jeon, cox: Junho Jung) The rowing team also won the university female team category.

The Norwegian Ambassador Visits POSTECH

Anne Kari Hansen Ovind, Ambassador of Norway to Korea, visited POSTECH on July 13, 2023. Norway has selected Korea as one of the nine priority countries in research and education as a part of the country’s Panorama Strategy. In light this, the Ambassador visited POSTECH to strengthen the research and education cooperation between POSTECH and Norwegian institutions. Professor Kwang-Jae Kim, Provost & Executive Vice President, and Professor Jong Kyu Kim, Vice President of Planning of POSTECH met with the Ambassador to discuss ways to expand student exchange and joint research between the two countries. Afterwards, Ambassador Ovind had a chance to look around the POSTECH campus including a tour of CHANGeUP Ground and POSTECH1986 museum.

POSTECH Receives Gift of 300 Million Won from Chairman Shin-Il Chun

Chairman Shin-Il Chun of Sejoong Co, Ltd has donated 300 million won ($236,000) to POSTECH. The donation will be used for student welfare, including the operation of “$1 Breakfast Campaign” and graduate student scholarship programs. Chairman Chun has provided POSTECH with both financial and cultural support over the years after donating about 63,000 square meters of land for POSTECH to be built in 1986. In 2006, the Shin Il Chun Scholarship Foundation donated $78,000 to POSTECH, and in 2007, 45,000 shares of Sejoong Namo Tour $495,000 were donated to POSTECH. Last year, he gifted 14 pieces of stone art to the university, providing an opportunity for students to experience Korea’s cultural heritage firsthand. During the pandemic, he provided vitamin supplements to university staff and last month, he purchased and delivered 600 copies of the book "On the Shoulders of Giants," which is a collection of interviews from founders of prominent corporations in Korea.

Prof. Janet Hering Gives a Series of Lectures at POSTECH

POSTECH Division of Environmental Science & Engineering (DESE) hosted a series of lectures from July 10 to 28 by Dr. Janet Hering, the former director of the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology. As the first female head of a Swiss federal research institute, Dr. Hering is an expert in the biogeochemical cycling of trace metals and water treatment processes for the removal of inorganic pollutants. With a Ph.D. in oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she made international headlines in the 1990s for investigating arsenic contamination of the water supply in Los Angeles, CA and providing arsenic removal solutions. Dr. Hering's textbook on aquatic chemistry has been described as a masterpiece that has influenced the way water chemistry is taught. An active member of the UNESCO Swiss Commission, she was inducted into the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2015. At POSTECH, Dr. Hering has given numerous talks on her research interests, including actionable research for sustainable development and pollutant generation and removal, as well as a lecture on the U.S.-European differences in perceptions of women entering science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), a topic she has always been deeply interested in. A separate workshop for female graduate students was also organized.

POSTECH Students Receive SPIE Scholarship 5 Years in a Row

Two POSTECH PhD candidates, Younghwan Yang and Yeseul Kim (Department of Mechanical Engineering) whose advisor is Professor Junsuk Rho, were selected to receive the 2023 Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship from the American Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). This marks the 5th consecutive year that POSTECH students receive the SPIE scholarship. Ms. Yeseul Kim developed a stationary LiDAR sensor that can see a full 360-degree area without rotation using metasurfaces and won a gold prize at the Nano Korea 2021 Symposium. Mr. Younghwan Yang recently contributed to the development of security label technology for determining the authenticity of items including whiskey, banknotes, passports, etc. through holographic images with adjustable brightness using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), which is commonly used in water pools and slimes. Established in 1955, SPIE is the world’s most authoritative society in the field of optoelectronics with 250,000 accumulative members in 183 countries. This year, out of the total 72 scholarship recipients, nine were selected from Asia and the two POSTECH students are the only ones selected from Korea. A total of eight POSTECH students have received this scholarship in the last five years since 2019.

Professor Sei Kwang Hahn Joins Editorial Board of Biomaterials

Professor Sei Kwang Hahn of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at POSTECH has been appointed to the editorial board of Biomaterials (IF:15.304), a world-leading scientific journal in the field of biomaterials. He will serve on the board for the next 10 years beginning in June 2023. Professor Hahn received his bachelor’s, master’s and PhD degrees in biochemical engineering from KAIST in Korea and joined the POSTECH faculty in 2005 after completing his post-doc studies at University of Washington in the U.S. He was a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School in 2012 and at Stanford University in 2019, respectively. Since joining POSTECH, Professor Hahn has published more than 180 papers in leading international journals including Biomaterials, Nature Reviews Materials, Nature Photonics, and Advanced Materials. He has been appointed as a member of the editorial board in recognition of his outstanding work over the years. Biomaterials, published in the UK by Elsevier since 1980, is a respected journal that covers excellent research in biotechnology and biomedical engineering and is cited more than 130,000 times a year.

The Dean of Carle Illinois College of Medicine Gives Invited Lecture at POSTECH

Dr. Mark Cohen, the dean of Carle Illinois College of Medicine at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, gave a special lecture to the POSTECH community on May 30, 2023. The lecture took place at the C5 building on the POSTECH campus. In his talk titled, “The Impact of Innovation and Engineering in Medicine: A New Paradigm for the Future of Medical Education,” Dr. Cohen described the founding of the world's first engineering-based medical school model and emphasized the need to train physician-scientists. About 100 students and staff attended the seminar, including those who participated online. Through the seminar, POSTECH members had the opportunity to gain a better understanding of the biomedical science industry and learn about physician innovators who integrate medicine, engineering, and clinical practice.

Seong Keun Kim, the Chairman of Samsung Science and Technology Foundation, Appointed as Ninth President of POSTECH

The POSTECH Foundation (Chairman Jeong-Woo Choi) appointed Dr. Seong Keun Kim (b. 1957), the chairman of Samsung Science and Technology Foundation, as the ninth president of POSTECH. The decision was made at the second board of trustees meeting of the 2023 academic year held on June 15, 2023. Dr. Kim succeeds President Moo Hwan Kim whose term expires on August 31, 2023. On the appointment of the new president, the board remarked, “We believe that Dr. Seong Keun Kim possesses the leadership that POSTECH needs at this time of transition as it leaps forward to become a world-class research university.” Dr. Kim received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Seoul National University in 1980 and completed his PhD in chemical physics at Harvard University in 1987. He served as an assistant professor, associate professor, and professor in the Department of Chemistry at Seoul National University from 1989 to 2022. In recognition of his outstanding research in physical chemistry, Dr. Kim was named the inaugural national scholar by the Ministry of Education and Human Resources of Korea in 2006, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2013, and the first non-European to serve as editor-in-chief of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (PCCP), one of the world's top three journals on physical chemistry. He served as the dean of College of Natural Sciences at Seoul National University for four years from 2014, enhancing its international status by improving the student learning environment and expanding its research infrastructure. Since 2019, Dr. Kim has served as chairman of the Samsung Science and Technology Foundation, contributing to nurturing talented young researchers by providing opportunities to engage in challenging and creative research. The board announced, "We believe that the new president Seong Keun Kim is the right person to propel POSTECH into the future, as a leader with great character who drives change and innovation." The board added, "With the appointment of the new president, we hope that all members of POSTECH – including the foundation, faculty, staff, students, and alumni – will work together to fulfill POSTECH’s founding tenets and strive to become a world-class university.” The new president’s term in office is four years from September 1, 2023 to August 31, 2027.

Professor Hyung Joon Cha Honored with the Red Stripes Order of Service Merit

Professor Hyung Joon Cha of POSTECH's Department of Chemical Engineering and School of Convergence Science and Technology (SCST) was awarded the Red Stripes Order of Service Merit at the 28th Ocean Day ceremony held on May 31. Professor Cha was honored with the medal for developing a medical bioadhesive material derived from mussels that has excellent adhesion properties while being harmless to the human body. He has also helped make advancements in the marine biology industry through his research on practical applications in the medical and pharmaceutical fields. Professor Cha received his bachelor's, master's, and PhD degrees in chemical engineering from Seoul National University, and worked at the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB) and the University of Maryland before joining the POSTECH faculty in 1999. Since 2010, he has been conducting leading research to secure new marine-derived materials as the head of the Marine BioMaterials Research Center (MBMRC) for 10 years, and has been leading advancements in the academic community as the 9th president of the Korean Society for Marine Biotechnology since 2022. May 31 is Ocean Day, a nationally designated day to promote the importance of ocean and marine life. Each year, the Korean Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries recoganizes researchers and industry leaders who have greatly contributed to the advancement of oceanography and fisheries.