"Journey to Happiness: Beyond Professional Development"
Speaker: Prof. Hoon Soon, Chair Professor
Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST)
Date/Time: August 27, 9 am Central/10 am Eastern
The ASCE Engineering Mechanics Institute (EMI) will host a special Fireside Chat featuring Prof. Hoon Sohn of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) on August 27 at 10:00 a.m. ET (9:00 a.m. CT). The virtual event, titled "Journey to Happiness: Beyond Professional Development," is part of the EMI Link Career Growth Workshop series and is designed to inspire engineers and academics at all stages of their careers.
Abstract
This presentation offers a brief narrative of my 30-year journey in structural health monitoring (SHM) and sensing. I will share personal experiences in research, education, and beyond with early-career engineers and faculty members, with the hope that these reflections will help them shape their own career paths and approach to professional development.
The presentation will be organized into four parts:
Part 1: My career in SHM and sensing: Reflections on my career to date, along with my personal perspectives on the future direction of SHM.
Part 2: Teaching and mentoring: Why I do not consider myself an ideal teacher, as well as my perspectives on education and student mentoring.
Part 3: Professional networking and international collaboration: Why and how to build meaningful professional relationships at conferences and committee meetings, and how to establish successful international collaborations
Part 4: Beyond professional development: Other aspects of life that contribute to happiness and fulfillment beyond one’s professional career Finally, the presentation will be followed by discussions with the audience.
Biography
Prof. Hoon Sohn received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Seoul National University, Seoul Korea and Ph.D. from Stanford University all in Civil Engineering. He worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) as a Technical Staff Member and at Carnegie Mellon University as an Assistant Professor. He is now KT Chair Professor at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) in South Korea, and he was an Executive Director at Korea Railway Innovation Institute under Korea National Railway from 2024 to 2026. His research interest has been in the areas of structural health monitoring, nondestructive testing, sensing technologies and data analytics. He has published over 280 refereed journal articles, over 400 conference proceedings, and 12 book & book chapters. He is holding 58 domestic and 28 international patents, and his developed technologies are licensed and commercialized by private companies, resulting in over 1.5 Million USD licensing agreements. He is currently SPIE Fellow, Member of National Academy of Engineering of Korea (NAEK), and Member of Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST).