AKPA News in February 1999
(Association of Korean Physicists in America)
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(1). The AKPA 1999 Annual Meeting
(2). AKPA Presidential and Auditor Elections
(3). Traditional APS March Wednesday Dinner Meeting
(4). The Winner of the 1999 Outstanding Young Researcher’s Award
(5). 1999 U.S.-Korea Conference (UKC)
(6). AKPA Homepage and Directory Updating
(7). Congratulations to Dr. Woo, SNU Graduate School Dean
(8). Personnel Incidence at Korea Electric Power Company (KEPCO)
(9). Publication of Articles in AKPA Homepage
(10). Reminder of AKPA Membership Dues and Contributions
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Dear AKPA members, we hope this e-mail finds every member of our AKPA family healthy and happy, and wish all of you have another wonderful year of RABBIT!
We would like to remind you that we always welcome your worthy news, any valuable ideas, suggestions, and comments for better AKPA. Please send information to any of the AKPA officers through e-mail to Yung.Yeo@afit.af.mil; jjsong@Okway.okstate.edu; sangc@physics.rutgers.edu; scheong@lucent.com; you@anl.gov; sklyo@sandia.gov; kim@physunc.phy.uc.edu.
(1). The AKPA 1999 Annual Meeting
AKPA will have an Annual Meeting on Sunday, March 21, 1999 in Atlanta, Georgia during the APS Meeting. Every AKPA member is encouraged to come to the Annual meeting. The exact time and place are as follows:
Time: 6:30 pm, Sunday, March 21, 1999
Place: Seong Do Ban Jeom (English name: Szechuan Garden)
5458 Buford Hwy., Doraville, GA.
Phone: (770) 455-7723
***AKPA would really appreciate if you would let AKPA know in advance whether you can come to the AKPA annual meeting or not by merely sending an e-mail to Yung.Yeo@afit.af.mil.
This meeting place has been arranged by Dr. Wounjhang Park, Research Scientist II, Electro-Optics, Environment, and Materials Laboratory, Georgia Tech Research Institute,
Atlanta, GA 30332-0861. If you have any questions regarding the meeting place, you may contact Dr. Park at: Phone: 404-894-0109, Fax: 404-894-5073
e-mail: won.park@gtri.gatech.edu
AKPA extends sincere gratitude to Dr. Park for his efforts.
Directions to the restaurant is as follows:
1. Take MARTA (subway system of Atlanta) Northeast Line. If staying at downtown hotels,
Peachtree Center is most likely to be the station to get on.
2. Get off at Doraville station. Take exit toward New Peachtree Rd. & Central Ave.
3. Walk along Central Ave. till it meets with Buford Hwy. (US 23). This is less than 0.2
mile.
4. Will find Seong Do (English name: Szechuan Garden) on your left. There is a big sign.
***If you want to go to the restaurant as a group, please show up near the message center (near message bulletin board) of the Georgia World Congress Center for the APS Meeting NO LATER than 6:00 pm.
(2). AKPA Presidential and Auditor Elections
The 22nd presidential and 11th auditor candidates for AKPA have been nominated by the AKPA Election Committee consists of Profs. Jin-Joo Song of Oklahoma State University, Chair, Nowhan Kwak of Kansa State University, and Young Soo Oh of Penn State University. The AKPA extends sincere thanks for their efforts to those who served as AKPA Election Committee members. The ballots were already mailed out to the regular AKPA members, and the ballots will be opened just before the AKPA annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. The election results will be reported in the next AKPA news. The presidential candidates are Dr. TAEIL BAI, Senior Scientist of Center for Space Science & Astrophysics, Stanford University, California and Dr. ZANG-HEE CHO, Professor of Radiological Sciences and Director of NMR Imaging Research, University of California at Irvine, California, and the auditor candidates are Dr. YOUNG HOON KIM, Professor of Physics, University of Cincinnati, Ohio and Dr. YONG SUK JOE, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Ball State University, Indiana.
(3). Traditional APS March Wednesday Dinner Meeting
As announced, the traditional APS March dinner meeting will be held at the "Great Wall" Chinese restaurant at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, March 24, 1999. The Great Wall Chinese restaurant is located at the grand lobby of the CNN (Cable News Network) building across the street from the APS meeting site. The price will be $30 (plus beverage). This meeting place has been arranged by six Korean students at the Univ. of Georgia and Prof. Y.S. Kim of University of Maryland. They are Jongwoo Choi, Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee, Kyong Soo Hong, Woo Seop Kwak, Yunsic Shim, Inseok Song, and Ho-Soon Yang. Senior members of the Condensed Matter Physics Group extend their gratitude to these people for their efforts. Further detailed information of the dinner meeting will be announced by Dr. Y.S. Kim again through his network.
(4). The Winner of the 1999 Outstanding Young Researcher’s Award (OYRA)
The winner of the 1999 Outstanding Young Researcher’s Award has been selected by the AKPA Award Committee consisting of Drs. Kiuck Lee (Marquette Univ, Committee Chairman), W.T. Chu (Lawrence Berkeley Lab), B.Y. Oh (Penn State Univ), C.R. Ji (North Carolina State Univ), S.K. Lyo (Sandia Lab), and S.W. Cheong (Bell Lab). The results are as follows:
Winner: Prof. Yong Baek Kim (Penn State University)
Honorable Mention:
Dr. Changyoung Kim (Stanford University)
Dr. Sihong Kim (University of California at San Diego)
Dr. Sangsig Kim (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
Dr. Jae Tae Seo (Hampton University)
Dr. YONG BAEK KIM, the winner, received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1995, and is an assistant professor of physics at the Penn State Univ. Dr. Kim is a condensed matter theorist, and published 18 papers in the archival journals. His research areas include quantum Hall effect, high temperature superconductivity, Kondo effect in exotic materials, and correlation effects in transition metal oxides. Dr. CHANGYOUNG KIM received his Ph.D. from Stanford Univ. in 1995, and is a physicist at the Stanford University Synchrotron Radiation Lab. Dr. Kim is a condensed matter experimentalist, and published 26 papers in the archival journals. His research areas include photoelectron microscopy on semiconductor surfaces, development of an imaging band pass analyzer, and photoemission spectroscopy on strongly correlated electron systems. Dr. SIHONG KIM received his Ph.D. from University of California at San Diego in 1996, and is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at San Diego. Dr. Kim is a condensed matter experimentalist with a good theoretical background, and published 13 papers in the archival journals. His research areas include transport and magnetic properties of metallic superlattices and epitaxial growth kinetics of magnetic thin films. Dr. SANGSIG KIM received his Ph.D. from Columbia Univ. in 1996, and is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Kim is a condensed matter experimentalist, and published 23 papers in the archival journals. His research areas include various optical characterization studies such as photoluminescence and Raman spectroscopies on various semiconductors and light-emitting semiconductor diodes. Dr. JAE TAE SEO received his Ph.D. from Hampton University in 1997, and is a research associate at the Research Center for Optical Physics of the Hampton University. Dr. Seo is a condensed matter experimentalist, and published 21 papers in the archival journals. His research areas include laser spectroscopy of solid-state lasers and development of mid-infrared laser materials for Lidar applications.
The award in the amount of $1,000 will be presented to the winner along with a plaque, and Honorable Mention plaques along with a cash award of $100 each will also be presented to four outstanding young physicists at the AKPA annual meeting. In particular, many outstanding young ethnic Korean physicists applied this year, and thus the Award Committee members had very hard time to choose a winner from them. AKPA extends sincere thanks to those who served as AKPA Award Committee members. They did wonderful job in selecting the winner. The main focus of the AKPA OYRA is to recognize and promote excellence in research by outstanding young ethnic Korean physicists in North America. The qualification for the OYRA is limited to those who received their doctoral degree within five years from January 1 of each year.
(5). 1999 U.S.-Korea Conference (UKC)
The 1999 U.S.-Korea Conference (UKC) on Science, Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Leadership will be held in August 12-14, 1999 at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA. AKPA members are encouraged to participate in UKC to discuss the latest trends in science and technology, to meet and hear the prominent people in various fields, to plan future career development, to explore cooperative business opportunities, and to make new friends and renew old friendships. Take your vacation or hold your alumni reunion around the Conference. KSEA members and interested parties are invited to participate in the organization of this conference. For further details, please contact Prof. Hong Taik (Thomas) Hahn at hahn@seas.ucla.edu or 310 456 7041 (H).
(6). AKPA Homepage and Directory Updating
The AKPA organization has its own homepage, and it can be visited by opening the web site <http://www.AKPA.org>. The AKPA web site has been recently transferred from Brown University to Korean Scientists and Engineers in America (KSEA). The AKPA extends sincere thanks to KSEA. In particular, AKPA wish to thank to Dr. Soo-Ung Kim, KSEA general secretary and AKPA Editorial Committee member, Dr. Kidong Lee, KSEA President, contact Prof. Hong Taik (Thomas) Hahn, KSEA President-elect, and Mr. Alex Jung, Technical Coordinator of KSEA. The current AKPA homepage is updated by Dr. You of Argonne National Lab. He is also responsible for maintaining and improving the AKPA web site during his term as an Editorial Secretary. We wish that this homepage would serve as a useful electronic network for Newsletter, AKPA data base, information exchange, publication of important articles, etc. for our members. Please utilize this AKPA homepage as frequently as possible.
AKPA is in the process of updating our current AKPA member directory. With the help of Drs. HoydooYou and Jeongsun Moon, AKPA made it possible for our members to update their addresses and other information directly from our web site at any time whenever the changes occur. This can be done by visiting <http://www.AKPA.org>, clicking on "2. AKPA Members," clicking on "4. Update Your Information," and just logging in and typing in the new information on the web site. The main idea of using a given data format is for a speedy data processing. In addition to updating any changes in currently listed AKPA members, we also try to list as many new members as possible into our directory. In particular, new graduate student members and first and second generation members of Korean ethnic background are welcomed. If you know of anybody who is not listed in the AKPA directory, please encourage him or her to list his/her name in the AKPA directory. AKPA will constantly update the membership directory as we received, and will make it available through AKPA home page.
(7). Congratulations to Dr. Woo, SNU Graduate School Dean
Recently, Prof. Jong-Chun Woo of the Physics Department of Seoul National University has been appointed as the Dean of Graduate School of Seoul National University. AKPA extends our sincere congratulations to him. Dr. Woo is a renowned condensed matter experimentalist with many well-known papers with research interests in semiconductor physics.
(8). Personnel Incidence at Korea Electric Power Company (KEPCO)
(This news was partly provided by Prof. Ki-Hyon Kim of North Carolina Central University on 12/18/98, and partly by Prof. Moo-Young Han, Duke University, in Jan 1999 issue of KASTIN. For more details, please contact these two professors.)
The Korea Electric Power Research Institute (KEPRI) of the Korea Electric Power Company (KEPCO) launched an ambitious research project in 1995, and hired many overseas Korean scientists and engineers. The number of researchers recruited under special contracts was seventy six, and there were also many physicists. Of the 76, 21 have been recruited off their US positions and many others from those who had already returned and were working elsewhere in Korea. Those recruited from the US are typically in their 40s and 50s, and are already established in their own professional fields in the US. Of the 76, four have 5-year contracts; the rest 3-year contracts, which start expiring in March, 1999. However, in November 1998, the new management at KEPRI announced unexpectedly that the entire 76 senior researchers, including many Korean-American scientists and engineers recruited from their US positions, would be given the following two options. (1) Take the incentive of 2.7 month's pay and leave by 12/31/98, or (2) accept the same rules as others of non-contract employees, which means pay becomes as low as others and can be laid off like others under the same rules. In any case, the 5-year contracts by which they were recruited were voided and the 3-year contracts would automatically expire in March. As of November 27, 1998, the highest ranking 16 members out of 76, while still under the payroll, were relieved of their positions.
Latest information provided by Prof. Moo-Young Han on 2/23/99 is as follows:
All of 76, with the exception of 2, have given up and accepted the second option that they be reduced in salaries and serve without the posts of directorship, when applicable. What happened or will soon happen to these 74 is anyone's guess; all depends on the usual vicious Korean interpersonal politics. The two holdouts have since returned to the US.
*AKPA expresses sincere thanks for information on KEPCO incidence brought to our attention by Profs. Kim and Han. It is indeed very sad thing to hear about terrible news such as this, especially from our own mother’s country.
(9). Publication of Articles in AKPA Homepage
AKPA has recently published an article entitled "World as Matrix Quantum Mechanics," authored by Piljin Yi of F.R. Newman Laboratory of Nuclear Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Dr. Piljin Yi received a Ph.D. in Physics at California Institute of Technology in 1994, and joined the High Energy Theory Group of Columbia University. He is with Cornell High Energy Theory Group since 1997. He is the winner of the 1998 AKPA Outstanding Young Researchers Awards. Dr. Yi specializes in the study of quantum aspects of black holes as well as of supersymmetric theories in general. His most notable works concern understanding spectrum of supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories and superstring theories. His e-mail address is "piljin@lns598.lns.cornell.edu". You may check out Dr. Yi's article in the AKPA web site under AKPA Articles. It is currently in a form of downloadable postscript file. AKPA would like to publish as many worthwhile articles and as often as possible after properly reviewing each article. The detailed information of this electronic publication can be obtained from Dr. You of Argonne National Lab. His e-mail address is hyou@anl.gov.
(10). Reminder of AKPA Membership Dues and Contributios
AKPA maintains its sound operation by the support of good standing members who pay yearly membership dues and generous contributions. AKPA always extends sincere thanks to our faithful AKPA members for their continuous generous support. We understand that all of us are very busy with so many things. We, however, would like to gently remind again our AKPA members to pay their dues and generous contributions. These dues and donations will be used to support various AKPA activities such as the Outstanding Young Researcher Award, regular mailing, E-link and Homepage service, and Elections. Please remember that only due-paying regular members will have the legitimate right to vote on AKPA matters according to the AKPA charter and by-law. The annual membership fee is $25 for a regular member, and additional contributions are voluntary, and would be greatly appreciated. Please also refer to "http://www.AKPA.org/" for more details on membership due and donation payment information. We also would like to remind the graduate students that the student membership fee is free, but the student can become a regular member by paying $25 regular membership fee.
Please make the check payable to the AKPA (not to Prof. Young Hoon Kim) and send it to:
Prof. Young Hoon Kim
AKPA Treasury Secretary
Dept. of Physics
Univ. of Cincinnati
400 Geology-Physics Building
Cincinnati, OH 45221
The AKPA members who paid their membership dues and donations as of 2/25/99 are listed under:
1998 AKPA MEMBERSHIP DUES AND CONTRIBUTION
I hope to see most of AKPA members at the AKPA Annual Meeting on Sunday, March 21, 1999 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Best wishes and kindest regards,
Yung Kee Yeo
20th AKPA President