GIST (Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology · President, Kim Young Joon) announced on October 8th, 2012 that Dr. Yannis K. Semertzidis(51 years old) of Brookhaven National Lab of the U.S. and Professor Nam Chang Hee (54 years old) of KAIST are appointed as GIST Campus Research Directors in the selection of the 2nd round Research Center Directors of Institute for Basic Science(IBS) for 2012 in the field of particle physics and intense-field science, respectively.  

Dr. Yannis K. Semertzidis, who will be leading the ‘research team for study of the origin of the universe and the symmetry’, has been contributing to development of technologies related to measurement of precision particle physics. Experimental methods that he proposed, such as Axion Dark Matter Search, were recognized for their possibilities of contributing to the particle physics.   

Professor Nam Chang Hee, who will be leading the ‘research team on the intense laser science’, is the Korean pioneer for study of femtosecond laser and a scientist who has developed the femtosecond terawatt laser of great performance with in-house technology when there was no study on this field done in Korea. Professor Nam is also recognized internationally as he is appointed as the fellow of the America Physic Society and the Optical Society of America. In the process of selecting the research director for this round, he presented the vision of establishing the world-leading laser research lab through his study on the relativistic laser science. 

    Dr. Yannis K. Semertzidis and Professor Nam will set up the research team at GIST by December this year, by earliest, and start their research tasks presented when they applied for the research director position.