Profs. Inchan Kwon and Daeyeon Lee receive 2011 KSEA Young Investigator Grants

KSEA (Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association) announced two winners for the KSEA Young Investigator Grant. Each winner will be awarded $10,000 honorarium and a grant certificate. For the newly established KSEA Grant this year, more than 40 applications from highly qualified researchers and engineers were received.

The KSEA Young Investigator Grant was established to recognize those who have demonstrated the outstanding early career as a young investigator whose achievement in science or technology areas is outstanding within the context of the mission of KSEA. Evaluation and selection was conducted by a grant committee consisting of five active KSEA officers based on review of the submitted application form, technology development plan, reference letters and resume.

After a strict evaluation proccess by the KSEA Grant Committee, Dr. Daeyeon Lee(Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania) and Dr. Inchan Kwon(Assistant Professor, University of Virginia) have been selected as the recipients of this honor.

Dr. Kwon started his Ph.D. study at California Institute of Technology in 2001 and received his Ph.D. degree in 2007. Upon completion of postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Kwon joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia (UVa) as the Assistant Professor in 2008. Dr. Kwon received the KSEA Young Investigator Grant for the proposal entitled "Development of Novel Strategies for Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Neurodegenerative Diseases”. He will continue to develop novel strategies to combat neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Dr. Daeyeon Lee received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering/Program in Polymer Science and Technology at MIT in 2007 co-supervised by Robert E. Cohen and Michael F. Rubner. After his PhD, Dr. Lee was a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University where he worked with David A. Weitz. He joined the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 2009 as an assistant professor.

Dr. Lee’s vision is to develop and extend the understanding of the interfacial assembly of soft nanomaterials at the molecular- and single particle-level to address major challenges in the areas of advanced applications including alternative/renewable energy, biomedicine, and water purification. Recently, his group has focused on generating functional nanostructured thin films using layer-by-layer assembly of polymers and nanomaterials innon-aqueous media. Dr. Daeyeon Lee has won numerous honors and awards including a Gold Medal in 2006 MRS Graduate Student Award Competition, the 2010 Victor K. LaMer Award from ACS Colloid and Surface Chemistry Division and an NSF CAREER Award in 2011.

KSEA congratulates the two grant winners, and also thanks all the applicants for their excellent efforts and contributions to the development of science and technology.