Seoul National University's College of Engineering (Dean Kookheon Char) announced on August 24 (Tuesday) that Professor Kyoung Mu Lee of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Head Professor of the Graduate School of Artificial Intelligence) was selected as the new editor-in-chief of the most influential international academic journal in the field of AI (Artificial Intelligence), the 'Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI)'.
 
The said selection of the editor-in-chief was the first to ever have selected an Asian, including Koreans, in the past 42 years of its history, and this can be seen as a splendid achievement, equivalent to rewriting the history of engineering in Korea.
 
IEEE TPAMI is the most prestigious academic journal based on international classification standards of SCI (Science Citation Index) and Google Scholar, with an Influence Index (IF) of 16.389. About 1,800 papers are submitted every year, of which only 20% are published, making it very difficult to even have the research papers published and recently, due to the global boom in AI research, their research paper submission numbers and their influence have increased significantly.
 
Professor Kyoung Mu Lee, who has been working as an assistant editor for the past five years, will serve as the editor-in-chief for two years from January 2022 onwards and will lead an editorial committee consisting of top AI scholars, including six deputy editors and 120 editorial staff.
 
“Being the editor-in-chief of an internationally renowned journal is the highest honorary position that an individual recognized as a world-class scholar can rise to. Personally, I am very happy to see that my efforts have gained the trust and recognition from fellow researchers around the world and as a scholar, I believe it is the greatest honor to be in such a position. Along with an individual's capabilities, this is a testament to the fact that Korea's academic status in the field of AI has grown to such an extent," said Professor Kyoung Mu Lee.
 
Professor Kyoung Mu Lee, as Korea's leading AI scholar, has published more than 250 papers so far, and their total number of citations has exceeded 21,000. In 2019, he served as the head of the organizing committee of ICCV2019, the world's top artificial intelligence conference with 7,500 participants, and successfully held the event in Seoul, contributing greatly to the development of AI in Korea.
 
In recognition of his achievements, he is currently an IEEE Fellow, a regular member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology and a member of the National Academy of Engineering of Korea and received the Seoul National University Academic Award, the Science and Technology Award of the Month and Red Stripes of the government's Order of Service Merit.
 
Currently, Professor Kyoung Mu Lee is in charge of the Graduate School of AI at Seoul National University and is also the president of the Korean Computer Vision Society, contributing to the development of AI talent and academic development in Korea.
 
“My responsibilities for taking on such an internationally big role are high, but with this opportunity, I will strengthen domestic technological capabilities in the field of AI and help young researchers to be able to actively take part internationally,” said Professor Kyoung Mu Lee.