The Korean American Scientists and Engineers Association (KSEA) Midwest Regional Conference (MRC) was held at the Hilton Hotel in Northbrook, Illinois, from March 25 (Saturday) to March 26 (Sunday) in 2023. The theme of the conference was passion for Science and Engineering, and it was organized by local KSEA chapters in the Midwest in collaboration with an Affiliated Professional Society (APS) and the Korea-US Science Cooperation Center (KUSCO). This event was the first of its kind in the Midwest region and was deemed highly successful with 90 attendees registered. The attendees were well-balanced with 44.4% undergraduates, 17.8% graduates, 4.4% postdocs, 18.9% faculty, and 12.2% from industry. The attendees were from various states, with 23.3% from UIUC and Chicagoland, respectively, 15.6% from Indiana, 13.3% from Minnesota, 5.6% from Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, respectively, and 6.7% from other states.
The conference opened with welcoming remarks by the organizers and Dr. Young-Kee Kim, the 51st KSEA President. The keynote speaker, Dr. Kangwook Lee from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, presented a seminar on Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT), titled “Revolutionizing Science and Engineering through Language Models”. Two technical sessions, Science and Engineering, respectively, were held in parallel. The Engineering session featured talks by Dr. Tom Oh (Rochester Institute of Technology), Dr. John J. Lee (IUPUI), Dr. Andrew Lee (Rolls-Royce), Dr. Yun Seong Song (Missouri S&T), Dr. Yongho Sohn (University of Central Florida), and Dr. Yun Jae Cho (General Motors). The Science session included presentations by Dr. Young-Sup Yoon (Emory University), Dr. Eun-Young Kim (Northwestern University), Dr. Do-Gyoon Kim (Ohio State University), Dr. Jae-Hyuk Yu (UW-Madison), Ms. Min Kyung Kang (Eli Lilly), and Dr. Sang Eun Jee (XtalPi). All talks presented significant and innovative work in their respective fields, including Medicine, Artificial Intelligence, and Additive Manufacturing. The Poster session featured nearly 20 poster abstracts, and three poster awardees were selected by conference attendees. The awardees were Dohun Kang (Northwestern University), Juwon Lim (University of Michigan), and Suk Bum Kwon (University of Wisconsin-Madison).
MRC was successful due to the hard work of many student volunteers, organizers, special guests from 시카고 총영사관, and prominent speakers. The organizers plan to improve the MRC based on feedback received from attendees through a survey and look forward to welcoming more participants next year.
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Reported by Sung-Hoon Gee, Ph.D.
Minnesota Chapter President
Staff Engineer at Seagate Technology
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