NST Appoints Heads of KBSI, KIER and KITECH

[Financial News] Professor Sungkyun Park has been appointed president of KBSI, Principal Researcher Jung Hak-geun has been appointed president of KIER, and Son Woong-hee has been appointed president of KITECH.
The National Research Council of Science and Technology (NST) said the appointments were decided at an extraordinary board meeting held on the 21st.
First, Sungkyun Park, the newly appointed president of KBSI, is a professor in the Department of Physics at Pusan National University (PNU). He earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Pusan National University in 1990 and a master's degree in physics there in 1994, before receiving a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Arizona in 2001. He worked as a senior researcher at KBSI. After joining Pusan National University as a professor in 2008, he served as chair of the steering committee for the Ministry of Science and ICT's project to build a multipurpose synchrotron radiation accelerator and as vice president of The Korean Physical Society (KPS).
Next, Jung Hak-geun, the newly appointed president of KIER, joined the institute in 1998 and served as head of the Energy Efficiency Research Division and head of the Energy ICT and ESS Research Laboratory, among other roles. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Chonnam National University (CNU) in 1996, a master's degree in mechatronics engineering from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) in 1998, and a Ph.D. in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Seoul National University in 2013. He has also served as a member of the New Excellent Technology (NET) certification review committee and as a planning committee member of the Ministry of Science and ICT's Limit-Challenging R&D Committee.
Son Woong-hee, the newly appointed president of KITECH, earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical design from Seoul National University of Science and Technology (SeoulTech) in 1988, a master's degree in mechanical design from Hanyang University in 1993, and a Ph.D. in mechatronics engineering in 2011. After joining KITECH in 1990, he served as director of the Institute of Convergence Technology and as vice president, among other roles. He also served as president of the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement (KIRIA) and as an adviser to the Korea Association of Artificial Intelligence Technology and Industry.
The presidents of the three institutes will serve three-year terms through September 21, 2029.

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