The youngest doctor from KAIST has joined Europe’s biggest electronics research center as a permanent researcher. Starting in March, Doctor Seulki Lee, who received her doctorate degree in Electrical Engineering by the age of 25, will be working at the Interuniversity Microelectronics Center Netherlands (IMEC-NL), which is the central research institute of the Europe Union in the field of biomedical science.

▲ Dr. Seulki Lee with Professor Hoi-Jun Yoo

Dr. Lee finished her high school education in two years at Seoul Science High School. In 2004, she entered KAIST and graduated after three years. This year, she received her doctorate degree after five years in graduate school.

Dr. Lee has built her research career since her undergraduate years. In her junior year, she conducted research on wearable healthcare as part of the Undergraduate Research Participation (URP) Program and was awarded second place. In graduate school, she deepened and narrowed down her research topic to “System on Chip for wearable healthcare.” Among her accomplishments, her development of the wearable sleep monitoring system in 2011 received significant attention at home and abroad.

Dr. Lee presented 11 papers in international conferences held in the United States, Japan, Taiwan and Europe. Three of her papers were awarded as outstanding papers by academic associations. Conferences where she published papers include the world-renowned International Solid-State Circuit Conference (ISSCC). In the field of circuit designing, publishing just one paper in leading conferences such as the ISSCC can be considered exceptional for a graduate student. Also, she applied for 10 patents on sensor networks, transceivers and circuits of her own invention.

“I think I could make it here because I truly enjoyed doing research on the subject I was interested in since my undergraduate years. If more research programs like the URP Program are opened for students, they will be able to bear rich fruits,” said Dr. Lee. She also added, “After gaining many experiences overseas, I want to contribute to nurturing young scientists in Korea. I would especially like to be a mentor for aspiring female scientists to help them carry out creative studies in natural sciences and engineering, where males account for over 80% of the researcher population.”

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