Professor Se-Bum Paik from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering and Professor Yongsoo Yang from the Department of Physics were appointed as the first two Singularity Professors. The Singularity Professor system was launched in 2020 to “support outstanding faculty capable of creating innovative technology”. Normally, professors undergo a performance evaluation at the end of each year, based on criteria such as the number of papers they wrote and number of times they were cited. This sort of evaluation determines their funding, promotion, or tenure. There has been criticism that such yearly evaluations, common in the Korean scientific community, leads to prioritizing quantity over quality in research. To tackle this problem, KAIST established a Singularity Professor track that exempts annual performance evaluation for ten years, creating a supportive environment for professors to focus solely on research. Their first five years of research will be fully funded by KAIST, and the continuity of funding will be determined by a mid-evaluation. KAIST will select two or three professors each year for this program. The first appointment was made this year after holding six committee meetings for selection among applicants 11 times the number of allocated spots.

Professor Se-Bum Paik conducts research to understand the human brain from a physics perspective. Traditional brain research is conducted from a biological perspective to examine how the brain works, but Professor Paik aims to understand the basics of brain functioning: why the brain behaves in such ways. His goal is to find and establish fundamental laws, something equivalent to “F=ma” in physics or the periodic table in chemistry, that so far does not exist in the field of neuroscience. Professor Paik has been publishing research papers that challenge the previously established theories by David Hubel or Torsten Wiesel, recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. His work suggests that several hundred research papers have to be disregarded, which prompted attacks from the scientific community. However, as experimental evidence that supports his work has been accumulating, his research is slowly gaining recognition.

Professor Yongsoo Yang studies the atomic structure of amorphous material such as glass. While crystalline solids such as diamonds have clearly defined atomic structures, the atomic structure of glass is yet to be identified. To do so, he is conducting research on developing 3D atomic electron tomography microscopes with electron transmission one thousandth of the current level. Current electron tomography technology cannot examine the atomic structure of glass because there are too many electrons passing through, which breaks the structure of glass. In an interview with JoongAng Ilbo, Professor Yang explained that if this research succeeds, it will contribute in advancing future materials science studies, since such amorphous structures always appear in the boundaries of metal-insulator-semiconductors.

A total of ten professors will be selected for the Singularity Professor system, which accounts for around 2% of the 650 professors at KAIST. KAIST’s ambitious Singularity Professor track hopes to pave ways in supporting long-term innovative and creative research.