School of Electrical Engineering Endowed Chair Professor Yung Yi, who dedicated 15 years of his valuable service to KAIST and his students, passed away on August 27. He graduated from Seoul National University with a BS and MS degree in computer science and engineering, and from University of Texas with a PhD in electrical and computer engineering. With machine-learning-based computer networking and communication systems being his main area of interest, he published more than 170 research papers on the design and analysis of wireless networking systems.
Professor Yi was awarded the prestigious Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) William R. Bennett Prize in 2016 for his work, “Mobile Data Offloading: How Much Can WiFi Deliver?” The prize is granted annually to the authors of the best paper published in IEEE Communications Society’s journal within the last three years, selected based on quality, originality, scientific citation index, and peer reviews. In his winning paper, Professor Yi accomplished a quantitative study on the performance of 3G mobile data offloading for a given Wi-Fi network by sharing statistics on Wi-Fi connectivity from iPhone users and proposing a distribution model-based simulator and a theoretical framework that enables performance estimation. Besides this, he received several other distinctions including the best paper awards at the IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communication, and Networking and the Association for Computing Machinery International Symposium on Theory, Algorithmic Foundations, and Protocol Design for Mobile Networks and Mobile Computing in 2013.
As the Chair of the Computer Division in the School of Electrical Engineering from 2018 to 2019, he established the course “My Life and Career in Electrical Engineering” (My EE), designed to guide electrical engineering students in smoothly transitioning into their major, adapting to college life, and exploring career opportunities. Additionally, he implemented novel measures to select and recruit renowned academic faculty, and led the production of easily accessible YouTube video lectures for several courses.
On June 26, a lecture hall (N1 Room 201) was named after Professor Yi. A naming ceremony, attended by Professor Yi, his family and students, President Kwang Hyung Lee, and other professors, was held to celebrate the occasion. Attendees delivered heartfelt speeches in reflection of his contributions and expressed further words of encouragement.
Many students, fellow professors and colleagues deeply mourned the passing of Professor Yung Yi, remembering him as a “warm, humorous, and passionate individual”. The KAIST community appreciates his endless drive for academic discovery, the memories and inspiration he left many with, and the love he held for his students.