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bluejives
Oct 6th, 2004, 01:35 PM
Song Jin-joo, a renowned Korean-American professor at the University of California in San Diego, will be honored as the Distinguished Alumni of the Year by the Kyung-gi Women's High School Alumni Association on Saturday.

The Kyung-gi award, since its inception in 1994, has honored outstanding alumni achievements in public, business or academic sectors, or their exemplary service to the community.

Song, a 58-year-old physicist living in California, is widely recognized for her expertise in nanotechnology and ultrafast phenomena, wide band gap semiconductor quantum structures, epitaxial growth, nonlinear optics and laser and photonic research. Her 1978 thesis with two other fellow scientists, "Picosecond relaxation measurements by polarization spectroscopy in condensed phases," was among the top 15 theses that changed physics in 1988.

The U.S. state of Oklahoma has marked Feb. 14 as "Professor Song Jin-joo Day," to honor her significant contributions to the state's high-tech studies and industries through her own research as well as her passionate teaching. She taught at the Oklahoma State University from 1987 to 2001, and became Regents Professor of Physics and Noble Professor of Photonics.

Matching her presence in the academic field, Song has served scores of influential U.S. scientific groups, quite often playing a leading role in them. She is a fellow of the American Physical Society, fellow of the Optical Society of America, president of The Association of Korean Physicists in America from 1999-2000, and the recipient of the Outstanding Asian Excellence Award of Oklahoma in 1996.

"She is a model figure whom many Korea's future scientists look up to. Having reached so high in her career path while not failing in family life, she stands like a statue for many young women struggling to balance their work and home," organizers said.

Born as the fourth child of Song In-sang, the current president of Korea Management Association, Song was raised in Seoul. At Kyung-gi Women's High School, she was elected as a student leader and graduated in 1964. Her choice to study physics at Seoul National University, and later to go further with experimental physics at Yale University, illustrates her strong will and courage. Back then, some 35 years ago, physics studies were dominated by male scientists, with nearly all of them putting focusing on theoretical physics.

Song, now an adjunct professor at the Electrical and Computer Engineering department of University of California in San Diego. She also is the founder and CEO of a high-tech venture company, ZN Technology, Inc.

Dialectic
Oct 6th, 2004, 02:41 PM
That's fuckin' terrific. I should've been a nanotech/ ultrafast phenomena expert. From Me, Myself, and Irene: "Man, this quantum physics is HARD!"

ric
Oct 6th, 2004, 05:28 PM
That's fuckin' terrific. I should've been a nanotech/ ultrafast phenomena expert. From Me, Myself, and Irene: "Man, this quantum physics is HARD!"

HAHAHA, thats if nanotechnology actually PANS out to work in real world.

Apollyon
Oct 7th, 2004, 01:13 AM
Notice how its an AF?? How many AMs get those kinds of accolades and honors???

Ha ha, I am just kidding. I think its great. I would love to hear more stories about Asian Americans and Canadians being honored in all fields, not just the sciences. I posted a list I'd compiled of Nobel Prize Winners of Asian descent before and I was going to do some further research into how much racism occurs within academia etc. but now I am not sure if I want to know that badly.

Incidentally, has anybody read Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation? I haven't gotten around to it, but I've read articles refuting his ideas.

bluejives
Oct 7th, 2004, 05:14 PM
Notice how its an AF?? How many AMs get those kinds of accolades and honors???

Ha ha, I am just kidding. I think its great. I would love to hear more stories about Asian Americans and Canadians being honored in all fields, not just the sciences.

most people, like many stupid journalists, interchange science and technology, as if they are the same. they're not. there are many technologists who are of asian descent, but relatively not many in pure, basic sciences. string theory is basic science, developing the world's first 2 GB DDR Ram memory is not.