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POSTECH Ranked 3rd Best Small University for 2nd Consecutive Year

POSTECH placed third again this year on 2020 World’s Best Small Universities list, recently released by the Times Higher Education (THE), a London-based leading publisher of higher education analysis and world university rankings. THE announces world rankings annually for universities with fewer than 5,000 students. The identical 13 performance indicators across five categories are used for small-scale global university evaluation as the global university assessment including, teaching, research, citations, industry income and international outlook. However, this evaluation only includes small universities due to their nature that prioritizes quality over quantity and customized education, which is not properly reflected in conventional university evaluations. Caltech placed first, followed by École Polytechnique and POSTECH placed third. POSTECH’s ranking is the highest among the Asian universities. POSTECH and UNIST are the only two universities from South Korea that placed within the top 10. Caltech, which continues to rank first, is an American engineering university of the highest level, established in California in 1891. It has produced outstanding scientists and engineers, such as Charles Richter, the developer of Richter scale and faculty members, including Albert Einstein, Linus Pauling and Richard Feynman. It is the frontrunner among the small and strong universities. École Polytechnique, in second place, is a leading university among France’s small elite educational institutions labeled ‘Grandes Écoles.’ It is the epicenter of French mathematics, science and engineering research and boasts 222 years of history and tradition. Three presidents, including Giscard d’Estaing, numerous senior officials and CEOs from major French companies have graduated from the university. THE praised POSTECH highly for encouraging entrepreneurship by “providing students with entrepreneurship programs such as clubs for student startups, support for prospective entrepreneurs, patent training and leave of absence granted for students to launch startups.”

Professor Young Chul Sung Makes a Gift of 10 Billion Won

[The gift will be used to develop educational programs in biotech and healthcare industries and in recruiting outstanding talent] Professor Young Chul Sung of POSTECH’s Department of Life Sciences and his wife Okhee Lee made a gift of 10 billion won (USD 8.4 million) worth of stocks to POSTECH to cultivate leaders in the post COVID-19 era. Prof. Sung and Mrs. Lee had expressed their intent to donate 10 billion won in July in seeing an urgent need to empower biotech startups and nurture experts who can conduct convergence research to combat new pandemics in the post COVID-19 era. Prof. Sung had also donated 10 billion won to ‘Fist POSTECH Fund’ in 2018 which is Korea’s first privately initiated fund for supporting commercialization of high-value technologies owned by the university. POSTECH held a signing ceremony on campus to establish the ‘SL Fund’ to honor the couples’ wish on August 19. The SL Fund, which stands for Saving Life Fund, will be used to develop creative convergent educational programs, to recruit outstanding talent, and to foster startups in the biotech and healthcare areas for POSTECH’s Life Sciences Department. Prof. Sung’s steady donations have drawn attention previously for donating about 70 billion won (USD 59 million) to academia and research institutions, and recently making a gift to Yonsei University as well. His donations are significant in that they are primarily focused on creating research ecosystem and supporting startups in the biotech industry. “Highly infectious and dangerous virus like COVID-19 can show up anytime in the near future and we cannot have a global lock-down like now at every instance,” Prof. Sung commented. In explaining his reason for donating, Prof. Sung pointed out, “Research-oriented universities like POSTECH should actively step in to foster exceptional talent in biotech and healthcare sectors to prevent situations like the one we are facing now.” He further added, “My wish is for SL fund to be the cornerstone of cultivating global leaders who can discover innovative technologies for saving the mankind from numerous threats that we may face in the future.” “I am thankful to Prof. Sung and Mrs. Lee’s for their foresight and providence,” remarked President Moo Hwan Kim of POSTECH. “With their full support and POSTECH’s superb R&D infrastructure to implement convergence education and research in biotech and healthcare industries, I believe that POSTECH and Pohang can grow into a biotech and pharmaceutical hub like the city of Basel in Switzerland.”

Professors Dong Woo Suh and Sung-Joon Kim's Paper Ranked Third Most Cited Article

The paper co-authored by professors Dong Woo Suh and Sung-Joon Kim of the Graduate Institute of Ferrous Technology at POSTECH was the third most cited article since 2017 in Scripta Materialia, a world-renowned journal in the field of materials science. The selected paper is titled, “Medium Mn transformation-indicated plasticity steels: Recent progress and challenges." Transformation-induced plasticity (TRIP) steel is a type of next-generation giga steel for automobiles, manufactured to display outstanding strength and plasticity at the same time through the phase transformation phenomenon. In this paper, the authors present the concept of alloy design and the control of micro-organizational properties to derive extreme materiality in the medium-manganese TRIP steel with increased manganese content than the conventional ones. Prof. Dong Woo Suh and Prof. Sung-Joon Kim first presented the concept of an alloy design that allows continuous annealing for commercial production of medium-manganese TRIP steels in 2010, and have since conducted active research in developing giga steels for automobiles using the TRIP phenomenon. Scripta Materialsia is the world's most authoritative journal on metal materials (top 5 percentile in its category by JCR) published by Elsevier, the world's largest publisher based in Amsterdam.

Professor Wonbin Hong Named Scientist of the Month

POSTECH Professor Wonbin Hong of the Department of Electrical Engineering was selected as the ‘Scientist of the Month’ for August by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea on August 5, 2020. Prof. Hong has developed the Antenna-on-Display (AoD) technology which embeds millimeter-wave antennas within display panels to increase transmission signals. Using this technology, it is now possible to co-use the entire view area of high definition displays such as OLED and LCD for massive number of 5G antennas. Prof. Hong demonstrated this AoD source technology by applying 5G antennas to Samsung’s smart watch in 2016 and LG’s smartphone in 2019 signifying its potential use for social and economic value creation. Prof. Hong commented, “We expect this technology to be the driving force behind developing innovative devices and services that precisely control the spatiotemporal features of wireless communications and wireless power transfer, radar, and radio wave sensors.” Scientist of the Month is an award granted to one researcher per month who has contributed to the advancement of science and technology with excellent research. The winner receives an award from the Minister of Science and ICT and a reward of ten million won (USD 8,500).

POSTECH and CJ CheilJedang to Nurture Specialized Professionals Together

[The two organizations sign an industry-academia MOU to cultivate and recruit tailored workforce.] On July 27, POSTECH’s Department of Life Sciences and CJ CheilJedang held a signing ceremony at the POSTECH Biotech Center to establish a partnership for fostering and recruiting specialized professionals. Through this partnership, POSTECH and CJ CheilJedang will seek a bilateral growth through training the specialists that CJ need, who in turn will be hired by CJ. CJ will facilitate the interchange of personnel by recruiting graduates and current students with bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in life sciences and will grant scholarships and opportunities to participate in corporate training programs and internships. Professor Yunje Cho, the head of Department of Life Sciences, commented, “Through this industry-academia collaboration, we are able to nurture professionals that the corporation needs. He added, “We expect that this will lead to more active industrial-academia research in the future.” Meanwhile, the ceremony was attended by Prof. Yunje Cho, the head of Department of Life Sciences, Prof. Kyong-Tai Kim, the head of Division of Integrative Biosciences and Biotechnology (IBB), Sung Key Jang, the director of POSTECH Biotech Center, Il-Doo Hwang, the director of POSTECH Functional Genomics Center, Bongsoo Ha, the chief of CJ CheilJedang’s Bio Division, Soojin Song, the executive director of CJ CheilJedang Strategic Planning, Sanghyun Lee from CJ's human resources department, and more.

Junho Park Scores a Grand Slam Win at IEEE AP-S

[Park wins best student paper award at the 2020 IEEE AP-S/URSI] For the first time in Korea, Junho Park, a doctoral student in the Department of Electrical Engineering at POSTECH (Academic advisor: Professor Wonbin Hong), has won first prize in the student paper competition at all three major conferences of IEEE's Antennas & Propagation Society (AP-S), including the 2020 IEEE AP-S/URSI, 2020 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation, and the USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting. Park had received the best paper award at IEEE ISAP 2018, the other major conference of IEEE AP-S and its biggest conference in Asia and in April 2020, he was the first Korean to win the best student paper award at the IEEE European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP 2020). With these accomplishments, Park has scored a grand slam win at all major conferences of IEEE AP-S in Asia, Europe and North America with different paper topics. Park and his advisor, Professor Wonbin Hong, presented a paper titled, ‘Optically Invisible Touch Sensor Panel Integrated Antenna: Concept and Demonstration at mmWave Spectrum’ at the 2020 IEEE AP-S/URSI conference. In the paper, the authors propose a novel concept of a microwave selective sensor equipped with optical invisibility, touch sensor, and two-way wireless signal capabilities. They also materialized and demonstrated QHD+ image quality, touch sensor and 5G beamforming technology in the OLED of commercialized devices. IEEE AP-S/URSI is the world’s largest international conference organized by the IEEE AP-S. At this year's conference, awards were given to 44 papers among a total of 1,355 accepted submissions. Park placed first after a rigorous 4-stage selection process among the 10 final candidates.

Summer arrives at POSTECH

Professor Joo Choi Receives the Hyunsong Engineering Award

Professor Joo Choi of POSTECH’s Graduate Institute of Ferrous Technology (GIFT) received the 2020 Hyunsong Engineering Award at the Spring Conference of the Korean Institute of Metals and Materials (KIM). The Hyunsong Engineering Award is an annual prize awarded by KIM in the categories of machinery and metal materials. Professor Choi, who completed his Ph.D. in Metallurgical Engineering at Seoul National University and served as the head of POSCO Research Laboratories, is recognized for his contributions in strengthening the nation's steel industry by dedicating his life to steel research and proposing the world's best cost-effective eco-friendly manufacturing process for ferroalloy. Meanwhile, the Hyunsong Engineering Award is given to engineers who are dedicated to the development of industries from the Hyunsong Educational & Cultural Foundation – established by Chang-kyun Chu, the founder of Dongbu Steel. The winners are selected through the recommendation of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering (KSPE).

POSTECH and KITECH to Mobilize Innovations in Manufacturing through AI

POSTECH and the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH) will partner together to accelerate AI-based innovation in manufacturing. The two organizations have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on July 7 to develop and commercialize production technologys through AI-based manufacturing innovation, and to establish a joint cooperation in education, research, exchange and mutual use of equipment. This agreement is the first collaborative partnership in the AI+X (convergence of AI and other industries) initiative that POSTECH has launched.

Professor Hyun Kwang Kim Recognized by the Korean Mathematical Society

[Receives an award for nurturing talented individuals through education and written works] Professor Hyun Kwang Kim of POSTECH’s Department of Mathematics received the Award for the Advancement of Mathematics Education from the Korean Mathematical Society’s (KMS) 2020 Spring Meeting held on July 3, 2020. Professor Kim has devoted himself to guiding and training students over the years and 12 doctoral students and 21 masters’ students have received their degrees in integer theory, code theory and union theory under his supervision. He also promoted mathematics by conducting a number of public lectures for elementary and middle school students as a ‘science ambassador’ commissioned by the Ministry of Science and ICT in 2004. He was also invited as a speaker to the teacher training programs organized by the office of education for Busan and Daegu cities and was credited for improving the quality of secondary education. Professor Kim, who completed his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University, has been dedicated to raising the next generation of mathematicians at POSTECH for 32 years since 1988 after serving at Ulsan University and Johns Hopkins University. Award for the Advancement of Mathematics Education from KMS is given to a Korean citizen who has made outstanding contributions to fostering young people over the years through mathematics-related education or written works. The 2020 Spring Meeting, the academic conference of KMS, was held virtually for the first time since its foundation to prevent the spread of COVID-19.