On September 25, Doctor Yun-kyu Ahn was appointed as a professor at Southeast University’s (SEU) School of Civil Engineering in Nanjing, China. Doctor Ahn obtained his bachelor’s degree from Korea University, before pursuing his graduate studies at KAIST’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering under the tutelage of Professor Hoon Sohn.

Given Chinese universities’ preference for hiring individuals who have studied in developed nations such as the United States or countries in Europe, Doctor Ahn’s appointment as professor at SEU is seen as something of an exception. Doctor Ahn’s research is in using laser-ultrasonics and thermal imaging in the assessment of damage to structures, and he has published over 20 papers in international journals, of which more than 10 are on Science Citation Index (SCI) journals, and owns four patents.

SEU, a public research university sponsored by China’s Ministry of Education, is one of China’s oldest universities and China’s first coeducational university. SEU is one of the top 10 scientific research universities in China, and eight of its departments including architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, art history, electronic engineering, transportation engineering, biomedical engineering, and civil engineering to which Doctor Ahn was appointed, are ranked among the top three nationally. In 2010, the renowned scientific publication, Nature, ranked SEU eighth among domestic research institutes. SEU currently has 34 departments and employs around 1,300 faculty members with over 27,000 students attending.