Highlights
Professor Hyun Myung Awarded 2024 Hanbit Grand Prize
<EE Prof. Hyun Myung won the 2024 Hanbit Grand Prize ⓒDaejeon MBC>
Professor Hyun Myung in the School of Electrical Engineering won the 2024 Hanbit Grand Prize.
The Hanbit Grand Prize, co-hosted by Hanwha Group and Daejeon MBC, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and discovers and awards individuals who have served and contributed to various fields in the local community.
The Hanbit Grand Prize selects one winner from each of five categories (science and technology, education/sports promotion, culture and arts, social service, and regional economic development) and awards each winner 10 million won and a plaque. This year, a special award (Oh Sang-wook, two-time Paris Olympics fencing champion, Daejeon) was added.
Professor Hyun Myung, the winner of the Science and Technology category, has contributed to the development of autonomous navigation and locomotion by researching these fields for 16 years, and was recognized for his contribution to winning the international autonomous quadruped robot competition by developing the new blind locomotion control technology called ‘DreamWaQ’.
The awards ceremony was held at the Daejeon MBC Open Hall on October 24 and was broadcast on Daejeon MBC TV on October 29.
<Prof. Hyun Myung was awarded the Hanbit Award, as reported by Daejeon MBC News ⓒDaejeon MBC>
EE Professor Yoo Chang-Dong’s Lab Wins 1st Place in the 2024 SNUBH AKI Datathon
<Photo (from left): Professor Changdong Yoo, Ph.D. candidate Ji Woo Hong, Ph.D. candidate Gwanhyeong Koo, MS candidate Young Hwan Lee, Ph.D. candidate Sunjae Yoon >
Doctoral students Jiwoo Hong, Kwanhyung Koo, and Seonjae Yoon, along with master’s student Younghwan Lee, from Professor Yoo Chang-Dong’s lab participated in the “2024 Bundang Seoul National University Hospital Acute Kidney Injury Datathon” under the team name “U-Vengers” and won the 1st Place Award.
This competition, hosted by Bundang Seoul National University Hospital, was an online datathon where participants used acute kidney injury (AKI) patient datasets to propose ideas and develop digital healthcare AI models.
The key goal was to create AI models that not only performed well but also demonstrated fairness across factors like gender and religion. The U-Vengers were recognized for the performance, fairness, creativity, and applicability of their developed model.
<Team ‘U-Vengers’ being awarded ‘2024 Bundang Seoul National University Hospital Acute Kidney Injury Datathon’>
Details are as follows:
Event: 2024 Bundang Seoul National University Hospital Acute Kidney Injury Datathon
Overview: Participants used an AKI patient dataset to develop AI models for AKI prediction, applicable in real clinical settings. In the preliminary round, models were developed using the MIMIC-IV dataset, and in the final round, real data from Bundang Seoul National University Hospital was used to build practical models.
Competition Period: September 12 – October 20
Award: 1st Place (Director of Biomedical Research Institute Award, Bundang Seoul National University Hospital)
Participants: Jiwoo Hong (Team Leader), Kwanhyung Koo, Younghwan Lee, Seonjae Yoon
EE Professor Junil Choi Research Team Lead Development of New Visible Light Communication Encryption Technology Using Chiral Nanoparticles n collaboration with Seoul National University
<Photo (from left): Professor Junil Choi, integrated master’s and PhD student Gunho Han, Seoul National University PhD student Junghyun Han, Dr. Jiawei Liu, Professor Ki Tae Nam>
Recently, next-generation visible light communication technology, leveraging visible light’s high frequency and linear propagation used in lighting systems, has attracted significant interest. Visible light communication boasts high security and data transmission speed, but it remains vulnerable to eavesdropping due to signal leakage, necessitating further advancements in encryption. The novel approach by the research team aims to address this gap by harnessing the unique interaction between polarization and the chiral optical properties of nanoparticles, which significantly enhances encryption performance.
The collaborative research from KAIST and Seoul National University has successfully used chiral nanoparticles to develop a secure visible light communication technology that greatly improves security. They achieved this by leveraging the nanoparticles’ chiral optical properties.
The team demonstrated through simulations that the security of visible light communication can be enhanced by optimizing the polarization based on the chiral properties of the nanoparticles—properties that are exclusive to authorized receivers. This effectively blocks any eavesdropping attempts.
<Figure 1. Conceptual illustration of the novel polarization-based visible light communication encryption system developed using chiral nanoparticles>
The research also revealed that signals passing through chiral nanoparticles create a unique differential channel due to circular dichroism—a phenomenon where the absorption of left- and right-handed circularly polarized light differs. The team found that adjusting the signal strength received through this differential channel can further boost encryption capabilities.
Furthermore, by comparing the bit error rates of legitimate receivers and potential eavesdroppers, the team demonstrated that visible light communication, once encrypted in this way, becomes nearly impossible to clone or intercept. They also showed that optimizing the polarization state based on the chiral properties allows for selective tuning of the system’s security and energy efficiency.
Professor Junil Choi emphasized, “This achievement was possible thanks to the collaboration between experts in materials science and electrical engineering. Moving forward, we intend to continue advancing visible light communication technology based on nanoparticles, aiming to develop a fundamentally eavesdropping-proof communication system.”
The study, co-authored by KAIST PhD candidate Gunho Han, Seoul National University PhD candidate Junghyun Han, and postdoctoral researcher Dr. Jiawei Liu, was published in the September issue of the prestigious multidisciplinary journal Nature Communications (Paper title: Spatiotemporally modulated full-polarized light emission for multiplexed optical encryption). This research was supported by the Agency for Defense Development through the Future Challenge Defense Technology Development Program.
Master’s student Jimin Lee from Professor Hyeon-Min Bae’s lab wins the Poster Excellence Award at the fNIRS 2024 Conference
<From left to right: Master’s student Jimin Lee, Ph.D. students Seongkwon Yu and Bumjun Koh, and Master’s graduate Yuqing Liang>
Jimin Lee, a master’s student in Professor Hyeonmin Bae’s lab, was awarded the prestigious Poster Excellence Award at the fNIRS 2024 conference, held from September 11 to 15 at the University of Birmingham, UK.
Now in its 7th edition, fNIRS is a biennial international conference that brings together basic and clinical scientists focused on understanding the functional properties of biological tissues, including the brain.
The award-winning research poster, titled “Fiber-less Speckle Contrast Optical Spectroscopy System Using a Multi-Hole Aperture Method,” was a collaborative project involving Jimin Lee, Ph.D. students Seongkwon Yu and Bumjun Koh, and Master’s graduate Yuqing Liang.
This research was recognized by the fNIRS 2024 Program Committee for its excellence, earning the Poster Excellence Award, which is part of the Scientific Excellence Awards.
The award is given to master’s, Ph.D., and postdoctoral researchers who deliver outstanding posters or presentations, chosen from among the 350 posters presented at the conference.
[KAIST EE’s Insue Won (MS, Graduated, 8. 2024), Jeoungmin Ji (Ph.D Candidate), and Donggyun Lee in Prof. Seunghyup Yoo’s lab awarded at the 2024 International Meeting on Information Display (IMID)]
<(from left) Master’s Insue Won, Ph.D Candidate Jeoungmin Ji>
Insue Won (MS, Graduated, Aug., 2024) and Jeoungmin Ji (Ph.D Candidate) (Advised by Prof. Seunghyup Yoo) won the Best Poster Paper Award at the 2024 International Meeting on Information Display (IMID) for their work entitled “Temperature-Dependent Dynamics of Triplet Excitons in MR-TADF OLEDs: Insights from Magneto-Electroluminescence Analysis.”
In addition, Dr. Donggyun Lee (Ph.D. Graduated, Feb., 2024) won “Kim Yong-Bae Award Grand Prize” in IMID for his work on stretchable OLED displays.
The International Meeting on Information Display (IMID) is one of the world’s two largest international conferences in the field of display technology, held annually during the summer.
This year, the conference took place from August 20 to 23 at the Jeju Convention Center (ICC Jeju).
Ph.D candidate Jeoungmin Ji presented a poster titled “Temperature-Dependent Dynamics of Triplet Excitons in MR-TADF OLEDs: Insights from Magneto-Electroluminescence Analysis,” which was conducted in collaboration with Samsung Display and supported by the Technology Innovation Program funded By the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy(MOTIE, Korea).
Additionally, Dr. Donggyun Lee was awarded the prestigious ‘Kim Yong Bae Award Grand Prize,’ which is presented annually at IMID to one graduate who submits an outstanding thesis in the field of display technology.
<Best Poster Award>
<Dr. Lee being awarded ‘Kim Yong Bae Award Grand Prize at IMID 2024>
Dr. Sangmin Lee (Advisor: Yong Man Ro), has been appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Data Science at Sungkyunkwan University
[Prof. Sangmin Lee]
Dr. Sangmin Lee, a 2023 graduate of the School of Electrical Engineering (advised by Professor Yong Man Ro), has been appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Data Science at Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, effective September 1st, 2024.
Dr. Lee received his Ph.D. with the dissertation titled “Associative Learning for Multimodal Representation under Ambiguous Pair Problems.” During his doctoral studies, he published 19 papers including top-tier conferences and journals such as CVPR, ECCV, and IEEE Trans on Image Processing, focusing on Multimodal Learning and Memory Learning.
Following his Ph.D., he pursued postdoctoral research at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), USA. During his postdoc., he presented his research, “Modeling Multimodal Social Interactions: New Challenges and Baselines with Densely Aligned Representations,” as an oral presentation at CVPR 2024.
Dr. Lee’s Current research interests lie in Multimodal Learning and Social Artificial Intelligence.
Professor In-So Kweon Selected as Recipient of the 38th Inchon Prize in the Science and Technology Category
Professor In-So Kweon was selected as the recipient of the 38th Inchon Prize in the Science and Technology category, hosted by the Inchon Memorial Foundation and Dong-A Ilbo, on the 9th of this month.
The Inchon Memorial Foundation and the Dong-A Ilbo established the Inchon Prize in 1987 to honor the legacy of Inchon Seong-su Kim, who founded the Dong-A Ilbo and Gyeongseong Textile during the period of Japanese colonial rule and nurtured talents through institutions such as Choongang School and Posung College (now Korea University).
The award recognizes individuals and institutions with outstanding achievements in four categories: Education, Journalism and Culture, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Science and Technology.
The award ceremony is scheduled to take place on October 11, and the recipients will receive a cash prize of 100 million won and a medal.
- Recipient Accouncment: https://www.donga.com/news/People/article/all/20240909/130005987/2
- Recipients’ Acceptance Speech and Achievements: https://www.donga.com/news/Society/article/all/20240909/130005968/2
EE Professor Minsoo Rhu, Appointed as First Asian Program Chair for MICRO
On the 5th, KAIST announced that Minsoo Rhu, Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, has been appointed as Program Co-Chair for the IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture (MICRO) scheduled to be held next year. This marks the first time in MICRO’s 57-year history that a faculty member from an Asian university has been selected as Program Chair.
Celebrating its 57th edition this year, MICRO is the oldest and most prestigious international conference in the field of computer architecture. Alongside ISCA and HPCA, it is regarded as one of the top three international conferences in computer architecture. Scholars and industry professionals from around the world participate in MICRO, with fewer than 20% of submitted papers being selected for final presentation.
Professor Rhu was appointed Program Chair of the 58th MICRO conference, set to be held next year, in recognition of his contributions to the field of computer architecture. He will serve as Program Co-Chair alongside Professor Radu Teodorescu of Ohio State University, overseeing the selection of around 300 expert members of the Program Committee and supervising the review of over 500 submitted papers.
Professor Rhu is recognized as a next-generation leader in the fields of intelligent semiconductors and computer systems for artificial intelligence (AI). His expertise is reflected in his induction into the Hall of Fame of major conferences, including HPCA in 2021, MICRO in 2022, and ISCA this year.
Professor Rhu completed his undergraduate studies in electronic engineering at Sogang University, obtained his master’s degree in electrical engineering from KAIST, and earned his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin. From 2014 to 2017, he worked at NVIDIA Research, and since 2018, he has been a professor at KAIST. He also served as a visiting researcher at Meta AI from 2022 to last year.
His research has been widely recognized by academia, receiving the Best Paper Award at HPCA this year, the Google Faculty Research Award last year, and the Facebook Faculty Research Award in 2020. Last year, he was also inducted as a member of Y-KAST, an elite group of young scientists under 43 recognized for their outstanding contributions to science by the Korean Academy of Science and Technology.
Professor Rhu commented, “While maintaining MICRO’s tradition of selecting only the highest-quality papers that lead academia and industry, I will also strive to create a program that comprehensively reflects emerging research in computer hardware and software.”
