Professor Jae Kyu Lee, the Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) Chair Professor in the KAIST College of Business, has recently been elected to become the next president of the Association for Information Systems (AIS). AIS is the premier international organization for academics who specialize in information systems, and has approximately 4000 members from 99 countries.

Professsor Lee will hold the position of president-elect on the AIS Council from July 2014 to June 2015, and will act as the AIS president from July 2015 to June 2016. This will mark the first time a Korean will hold such position in the AIS. Some of Professor Lee’s other notable achievements within the AIS include when he was selected as the first Korean AIS fellow in 2011, and his efforts in getting the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) to be held in Seoul in 2017.

After graduating from Kyungbuk High School, Professor Lee received his undergraduate degree at Seoul National University, obtained a master’s degree in industrial engineering at KAIST, and a doctoral degree in operations and information systems from the University of Pennsylvania. Some of his numerous accomplishments include being the founding editor-in-chief of the journal Electronic Commerce Research Applications; chairing many conferences including the International Conference on Electronic Commerce, International Conference on Information Systems, and the Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems; co-authoring the widely used textbook, Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective. Professor Lee received the prestigious Maekyung Economist Prize in 2004, and has been decorated by the Korean government for his many contributions in the field of information technology. He currently heads the KAIST Graduate School of Green Growth, is the director of the Energy, Environment, Water, and Sustainability (EEWS) Research Center, and is studying the convergence of green business and information technology. 

Professor Lee stated, “I am honored to have this opportunity to contribute to the field of management information internationally as the president of AIS. [...] Now, we need to work on establishing information systems that tackle disaster management and climate change so that we can address such issues in a timely manner.”