Professor Park Young-kyun of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) was born in 1985 and is considered part of the younger generation at KAIST. He graduated from KAIST and went on to the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, Switzerland, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, before taking up his professorship at KAIST in September 2020.
During a meeting on the KAIST campus in Daejeon on the 10th, Professor Park said he came to KAIST with the goal of conducting research that has not been done anywhere else in the world. He intends to "take a path that no one has taken." One of the first things he did to achieve this goal was to find student researchers to work with him from overseas.
Professor Park is conducting research that analyzes the neurological signaling network of the brain at the individual cell level. The goal is to find new treatments that can overcome brain diseases such as depression or dementia. Professor Park noted, "To do good research, it starts with bringing in the best talent," and explained, "That is why I expanded the recruitment scope beyond Korea to the entire world."
Since Professor Park came to KAIST in 2020, many international students have passed through his lab. The nationalities were diverse, including those from Thailand, the Philippines, Kazakhstan, India, Finland, Israel, and France. Professor Park's lab has already been selected as a "KAIST Globalization Excellence Lab."
He said, "The first student I selected in 2020 was from Finland, and now they are working at a domestic bio corporation, SillaJen," adding, "When I said I would pick an international student as the first, senior professors advised against it, but now I think it was a good choice."
Currently, there are 15 student researchers working in Professor Park's lab, of which 2 are foreigners. Ela Li Maizel, a master's student, earned her bachelor's degree in biology and psychology from a prestigious university in Israel, the Hebrew University, and has been pursuing her master's at KAIST since September 2023. She is scheduled to graduate from the master's program in August and continue on to the doctoral program.
Researcher Ela Li said, "My mother had a profession that required her to always deal with patients with brain diseases, and because of that, I have always been interested in brain science," adding, "Israel is great, but I believe Korea also has competitiveness in the bio field, including brain science."
Researcher Ela Li stated that there are generally no major issues with life in the lab or on the KAIST campus. Professor Park's lab operates entirely in English. Although there are more Korean students, she believes it is appropriate to operate the lab in English to strengthen international competitiveness.
Professor Park said, "Having been at MIT as well, I believe the intellectual level of students at KAIST is even better than that of MIT," adding, "However, unlike MIT students, Korean students often struggle with speaking and writing in English, which has made them fall behind in global competition." He added, "This is why I select international students to create an international environment at KAIST and run the lab in English."
Despite these efforts, there are still many unresolved issues. Researcher Ela Li pointed out that the biggest challenge is that there are many places in daily life where English is not understood, and there are no services to assist with tasks like banking or housing contracts.
He stated, "The rental and jeonse systems in Korea are vastly different from those in Israel, and there are times when I feel overwhelmed about how to resolve these issues," adding, "There are many situations, such as in hospitals and banks, where English is not understood, and when I inquired something at a support service for foreign students like ISSS, I was surprised to receive a response in Korean."
ISSS is an abbreviation for International Student and Scholar Services, an organization that helps foreign students adjust well. It is rather ironic that a place intended to assist foreigners would use Korean.
Professor Park emphasized that for Korea, a country with a low birthrate, to survive, it must actively recruit talent from abroad. In his view, now is an opportunity to actively recruit international talent, as interest in Korea has improved due to the K-pop and K-drama craze. Professor Park noted, "There is a world of difference in how foreign students perceive a lab that has no foreigners compared to one that has at least one."
He stressed that to recruit foreign talent, even in the science and engineering fields, all government project planning and evaluations should be conducted in English, and that significant settlement funds should be provided to foreign professors or talent, emphasizing the need to find new support measures that have not been implemented before.
Researcher Ela Li stated, "For Korean science to advance, we need to bring many students from more diverse countries," adding, "Only then can we find ideas that break the stereotypes." However, when asked if she would settle in Korea after obtaining her doctoral degree, she could not give a definite answer, noting that while the research level is high, it does not yet meet the quality of life. Finding a way to support the everyday lives of international talent may be the first concern.