Professor Cha Kook-Heon inaugurated as the Dean of SNU College of Engineering

-first dean from Dept. of Chemical & Biological Engineering in 24 years


▲ 28^th dean of SNU College of Engineering

 
On September 1^st, the Seoul National University Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering Professor Cha Kook-Heon took office as the 28^th SNU College of Engineering.
 
He is the first dean of College of Engineering from Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering in 24 years.
 
SNU College of Engineering started the registration of the next dean candidate at the end of last May, during Lee Kun-Woo’s service as dean, and a total of 5 candidates registered. On June 15^th, 63 professors of College of Engineering were randomly selected from 340 as the Electoral College, and Professor Cha Kook-Heon was elected as the top candidate. He was then recommended to the president according to the election result, and at the end of last august, President Sung Nak-In appointed Prof. Cha as the dean of the College of Engineering.
 
The new Dean Cha is known as an expert researcher within the College, because he is evaluated as a world-class scholar in the field of chemical engineering, with his 310 academic papers (SCI) and 90 patents.
 
Prof. Cha graduated from SNU with a Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, and received his master’s and doctor’s degree in chemical engineering from KAIST and Stanford University. After his working experience in IBM Almaden Research Center and LG Chemical, he is serving as a professor in the SNU Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering for 26 years since 1991.
 
During his tenure as a professor, he has been working as a member of the Gutenberg Foundation and a Fellow member of American Physical Society, and received a number of academic awards, including the TOTAL Visiting Scholar Award (France, 2017), the Samsung Polymer Academic Award (Korea, 2012) and the Gutenberg Research Award (Germany, 2006).
 
He is also the vice president of The National Academy of Engineering of Korea, a full member of The Korean Academy of Science and Technology and a member of Presidential National Balanced Development Committee. Within SNU, he has served as the dean of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and has worked on computerizinh all materials of College of Engineering as the Chief information officer of Information Systems & Technology (vice dean).
 
Prof. Cha has pledged actively promote to maintain the Technical Research Personnel system, which the Ministry of National Defense is promoting the abolition due to the decrease in military service resources, by setting up a task force within the College.