Stony Brook University SUNY Korea

February 16, 2022 A special event on Wednesday, February 23, will celebrate a unique art installation on view at the Central Reading Room in the Frank Melville Library.     The exhibition, “STEM + Arts = STEAM,” powerfully represents the inherent synergy between the natural sciences and visual arts. The work was co-developed by the interdisciplinary team of SBU professors Ete Chan, from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Nobuho Nagasawa, from the Department of Art, in partnership with Stony Brook University Libraries.     The exhibit will be on view at the Melville Library through March 9 and features three biosignal-driven works that illustrate the influence our bodies have on technology, portrayed artistically.   At the February 23 event, which will be held from 1 pm to 2:20 pm during Campus Life Time, Computer Science Professor I.V. Ramakrishnan and Art History Professor Karen Lloyd will make short presentations on their current STEAM research. The event will conclude with final remarks by College of Arts and Sciences Dean Nicole Sampson and College of Engineering and Applied Sciences Dean Jon Longtin.   Click here to read the original article 

February 3, 2022 Adryan Wallace, assistant professor in the Department of Africana Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, was recently selected by the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (OSAA) to present at an upcoming conference on “Africa’s fiscal space, fragility, and conflict.” Wallace, who also has affiliations in the departments of Political Science and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, will present a paper with policy recommendations to representatives of member states and UN entities. Her paper will also appear in a UN-OSAA publication of policies that can be implemented by UN offices and relevant heads of state. The UN-OSAA’s goals include promoting efforts by African countries and development partners to improve the fiscal space for sustainable growth, avoiding the worsening of fragility, and preventing conflict on the continent. Wallace, who holds a PhD in Political Science, an MA in African Studies, and a BS in Psychology, conducts research that combines quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the interactions among gender equality, state fragility, and regional economic integration in Africa. She has served as a member on previous policy panels for the UN and for the U.S. State Department’s U.S. – Africa Leaders’ Summit for the Obama Administration, as well as a delegate during a meeting with the chair of the African Union, His Excellency Moussa Fake Mahamat, at the African Union Representational Mission to the U.S. in Washington, D.C. The majority of Wallace’s work focuses on how Muslim women in West Africa are able to articulate their development interests within the context of Sharia law and secular political institutions. Her current book project analyzes the ways that Hausa women in Kano, Nigeria and Tamale, Ghana, use their non-governmental (NGO) and community-based organizations (CBOs) to challenge the economic roles ascribed to them by the state and to mobilize politically around gender issues. Click here to read the original article

For all SUNY Korea students that wish to be issued an International Student Identity Card, please visit the link below. English: Click here  Korean: Click here     *Students can receive about 150,000 benefits worldwide through the ISIC Association during the ISIC validity period. 

  SUNY Korea is currently operating Spring 2022 Writing Center and Tutoring Center.    Writing Center: Tutoring Sessions are provided to help students improve their writing skills. Students can sign up and make an appointment for a writing tutoring session.    Sign- ups are still available. For more information, visit SUNY Korea announcement page: Click here      AMS/ Physics Tutoring Center: Students are matched with a tutor for 1 hour of tutoring session per subject in a week. *Currently applications are closed.  

Are you dealing with stress and anxiety? Are you looking for ways to gain insight into your future career paths or choices?    Just as much important as your physical health is your mental health!    If you would like to experience personal growth and learn more about yourself on a deeper level, SUNY Korea Counseling Center is here for you. Check out the information below if you’re interested.     ●     Counseling Center hours:   M: 10 AM – 6 PM    T: 8 AM - 4 PM   W: 8 AM - 5 PM    TH: 9 AM - 5 PM   F (Zoom only): 1 PM - 5 PM   ●     Email: counseling@sunykorea.ac.kr     ●     Phone number: 032-626-1164; 032-626-1167     ●     Location: Academic Building A521 & A522

We would like to inform you that a new section under Announcements has been created.  Kindly check out the link below to get updates regarding COVID-19. https://www.sunykorea.ac.kr/en/html/sub05/0503.html?category=06 Should you have any questions or concerns regarding COVID-19 matters, please send an email to covid19report@sunykorea.ac.kr Stay healthy and safe! 

On March 2, SUNY Korea Undergraduate Student Council (USC) hosted Spring 2022 Club Expo. Several events with prizes were organized by each club during the expo to promote and introduce their club activities.     We hope students had a chance to find out THE CLUB for their university life!

MEC Professor Seungbok Choi’s article was selected as the cover page of a journal titled, Applications of Magnetorheological Fluid Actuator to Multi-DOF Systems: State-of-the Art from 2015 to 2021.   Below is the cover story written by professor Choi:   “This review article presents various multi-DOF application systems that utilize magnetorheological (MR) fluid actuators such as sandwich structures, dampers, mounts, brakes, and clutches. In the first part of this review article, recent research works related to MR sandwich structures, which have been extensively studied in the field of vibration and noise reduction and control, are discussed.       In the latter part of this review, recently reported MR fluid actuators are classified by application field, and the features of newly proposed actuators are investigated. The application fields considered in this study include not only traditional automotive, aerospace, manufacturing, and civil engineering fields but also robotics, rehabilitation engineering, and haptic interfaces, which have recently received increasing attention.” 

The six-month long SUNY Korea FIT Corporate Program, aimed at providing education on the fundamentals of fashion design for store managers, finally came to an end. On February 21, the final presentation and certificate award ceremony was held. An exhibition of their works was also held at the flagship store of a French luxury fashion brand from February 22-24. SUNY Korea FIT looks forward to having such opportunities again in the future!

Dr. Hamid Hefazi has been appointed Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs of SUNY Korea, effective February 9, 2022. The announcement was made by SUNY Korea President Arthur Lee.    Dr. Hefazi joined SUNY Korea in 2019 as Professor and Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department. Since he received his Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1985, Dr. Hefazi has been involved in a broad range of teaching, research, and academic administration activities.      His more recent research works have been on the application of CFD in turbomachinery, aerodynamic design optimization, aeroacoustics, hydrodynamics, ship design, and advanced multidisciplinary design and optimization (MDO) methods.  Dr. Hefazi has been the principal investigator for more than one-hundred externally funded research projects including projects sponsored by the US Office of Naval Research, NASA, US National Science Foundation, and the Boeing Company among others. Prior to joining SUNY Korea, he served as the head of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Departments at California State University and Florida Tech for a combined 19 years.       Dr. Hefazi has also served as the director of several organizations and research labs including the Boeing Company's Technology Centre at California State University. He has received many awards including The US Department of Defense’s Nunn-Perry Award for 2005 and 2006 and the Boeing Company's Silver Eagle Award for innovation in 2006.  He is a member of the US National Academy of Inventors and an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).     Hamid Hefazi has already contributed much in many areas of SUNY Korea operations during his short tenure at SUNY Korea: personnel and policy committee, faculty senate, grievance policy, faculty evaluation criteria and guidelines, etc. As the chief academic officer overseeing the curricular and faculty matters, he has much to contribute to the university.   

Welcome aboard, SBU Class of 2026! SUNY Korea welcomed 157 new students from 12 different countries at the Spring 2022 Convocation which was live-streamed on YouTube.     President Arthur Lee, during his congratulatory speech, remarked, “As the President of the University, I ask each of you to be a responsible member of the SUNY Korea family, the community around us, your country, and the world. As a member of this family you became an ambassador to the outside world.” He also emphasized the importance of having big dreams and setting practical goals to accomplish them.       *To read related articles: Kmaeil Consumer Times       

  Engineering Education in South Korea by the Numbers   During the past few decades, South Korea has experienced the highest economic growth in the shortest time ever seen in modern world history.  This growth was accomplished by investing in Heavy and Chemical Industries (HCI) during the 1970s, followed by the development of high technology-focused industries. At the time, the country lacked adequate engineering educational institutions to support such growth. As a result, the main body of research institutions (such as the Korean Institute of Science and Technology), which provided support for high tech industries, consisted of researchers with Ph.D. training from abroad.   The history of contemporary science and engineering education in Korea dates to the early 1900s. Ten engineering students on the college level graduated in 1918 and four more students in mathematics and physics graduated in 1919. The first Bachelor’s degrees, which consisted of one in physics, four in mechanical engineering, two in metallurgical engineering, five in electrical engineering, and two in chemical engineering were awarded in 1943.   Today university education and research in Korea are quite diverse. The university entrance rate (percentage of high school graduates who enter higher education institutions) increased from 33% (1990) to 68.2 % (2014) and 71.5 % (2021). Despite this increase in rate, the university enrollment numbers have dropped from a peak of 2.13 million in 2014 to 1.93 million students in 2021. Korea's ranking with regard to published SCI journals went up from 34th (1990) to 12th (2015) out of 180 countries.     In 2021, there were around 202 universities and 134 community colleges in Korea. There were also a large number of other higher education institutions such as industrial universities, graduate universities, and graduate schools that are unaffiliated with a university. One hundred sixty (160) universities offered at least one undergraduate engineering program.   In 2019, more than 571,000 undergraduate students were enrolled in engineering programs.  Computer Science and Engineering with 45,654 and Mechanical Engineering with 44,703 had the two highest enrollments. The population of Korea is approximately 16% of the US, however the number of undergraduate engineering students in Korea was 61% of 622,550 engineering students in the US.  Similarly, more than 30,000 Master’s and 18,000 Ph.D. students were enrolled in engineering programs in Korea in 2019. These were 32% and 22 % respectively of those in the US.   More than 81,300 BS engineering and computer science degrees were awarded in Korea in 2019. This was close to 42% of the 191,336 BS engineering degrees that were awarded in the US.  In Korea, the highest percentage of degrees (12.5%) was awarded in mechanical engineering with computer science and engineering a close second at 12.1%. In the US. mechanical engineering and computer science comprised 22.5 % and 29% respectively of the total degrees.   Engineering profession and education have historically been male-dominated and despite some progress in recent years, they continue to be so. For example, in the US, women earned 21.9 % of bachelor’s degrees, 26.7% of master’s degrees, and 23.6% of doctoral degrees in engineering in 2019. The disciplines where women earned over 40% of the bachelor’s degrees in were environment engineering, biological/agricultural engineering, and biomedical engineering.   In Korea, in 2019, 23% (5, 18,745) of BS degrees were awarded to women. The highest percentage of engineering BS degrees awarded to women was in Architectural Engineering (41.5%) and the lowest in Mechanical Engineering (9.5%). The numbers for MS degrees awarded to women were 2,781 out of 13,722 (20%) and 507 out of 4,217 (12%) for Doctoral degrees.   From 385,350 enrolled engineering undergraduates in Korea in 2019, about 1.5% or 5,860 were international students.  The numbers for MS and Doctoral degrees were 2,599 out of 30,342 (8.5%) and 2,621 out of 17,986 (14.5%).  Computer science and engineering and mechanical engineering are the two top choices for international students.   Despite recent decreases in the numbers, US remains the top destination for international students. The number of international students in US universities dropped by 15% from a peak of 1.1 million in 2019 to 914000 in 2020/21. In 2019, About 21% or close to 230,000 of them were studying engineering.  This represents 29% of over 795,000 students in undergraduate and graduate engineering programs in the US.   In 2018, 10.5 %, 57.1% and 56.3% of BS, MS and Ph.D. engineering degrees in the US were awarded to international students.   Over 39,000 Korean students studied in the US during the 2020/21 academic year. This is 12 % less than close to 49,800 in 2019/20 and represents close to 4.2% of the total international students in the US. Korea is ranked third after China and India. The influx of Korean students adds close to $2.3 billion to the US economy each year.   During the past few decades, Korea has achieved eye-opening progress, producing significant quantitative growth and increased quality in engineering education. However, recent trends lead by the decline of the school-age population and the shift towards a creative economy calls for urgent qualitative and quantitative research focused on reform of universities to meet the needs of the country.   Click here to read the article          

As President Lee announced on Jan 19, 2022, and consistent with the Ministry of Education (MoE) guidelines, we will start the spring 2022 semester in-person with the necessary safety measures in place. However, due to continued concerns about the spread of omicron and out of an abundance of caution, classes with enrollment caps of 40 or above will be held online.       Over the course of the next few days, faculty who teach these classes should inform students of the online class mode and provide the necessary information (Zoom link ) to students enrolled. Please note that, unless you (students) receive such a notice, your class will be held in person. This arrangement may change depending on the pandemic situation and government guidelines. Any such changes will be announced in advance.      The safety of our students, faculty, and staff, as well as an effective learning environment, are of paramount concern to SUNY Korea. We would like to ask for your full cooperation by wearing a mask on campus and complying with all of the social distancing rules.  Separate announcements regarding the dormitory and campus life will be sent by Student Affairs. Please let me know if you have any questions.      Welcome back on campus and I wish you all the best in the spring 2022 semester.     Regards, Hamid Hefazi Provost

We would like to invite you to the Spring 2022 Online Convocation Ceremony on February 18, at 3:00pm via YouTube Live Streaming.     Please join us to celebrate the convocation on SUNY Korea's official YouTube Channel.     *Date & Time: Friday, February 18 at 3:00 pm (KST) *Live Streaming on SUNY Korea Youtube Channel: Click Here ※ Please subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive event notifications.     Please join the convocation and congratulate our new students on embarking on an ambitious path to obtain a higher education.  

Dr. Seung-Bok Choi, Professor of Mechanical Engineering has been elected as a Director of Secretariat of AASSA (The Association of Academies and Society Sciences in Asia). His term is from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2024. AASSA was launched in January 1, 2012 with 34 member Academies and Societies of science from 30 countries including Korea, Japan, China, Australia, Malaysia, India, Vietnam, Turkey, Uzbekistan and so forth.      The principal objective of AASSA is to achieve a society in Asia and Australasia in which science and technology play a major role in the development of the region. As a Director of Secretariat, Dr. Choi arranges all forum and seminar to be organized by AASSA for scientists and technologists to discuss and provide advice on issues related to science and technology, research and development, and the application of technology for socio-economic development. He also plays a role of a liaison with The IAP (the world science academy network, Inter-Academy Partnership) and a financial manager of AASSA.      Currently, Professor Choi is a fellow of two Korean academies: The Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST), and The National Academy of Engineering of Korea (NAEK). It is remarked that AASSA Secretariate is operated by KAST.      Related Link: AASSA, KAST