Since 2004, QS has served as an official institution evaluating world university rankings. The annual QS ranking by subject this year has been announced very recently(Mar. 8 2017). It is glad to see our department, MSE(Materials Science & Engineering) ranked in the 13th in the materials science & engineering division. This is the fourth consecutive year (2014: 16, 2015: 19, 2016: 18) that MSE was selected as top 20 universities in the QS world university ranking system.

Received 30 million won in international grants at the department head meeting of the College of Engineering.

On Feb. 28 2017, Prof. Joong Keun Park and Prof. Jeong Yong Lee finished their long time of committed professor to develop the science and technology and cultivate talented scientists and engineers. At the ceremony, with a number of students present, both the retirement ceremony and commemorative lectures were held out, and government prize and appreciation plaque were award for their contribution to MSE. As of March 2017, two professors were granted the emeritus professor in MSE.

This year, MSE has received new faculty member Prof. Seungbum Hong as of Jan. 13, 2017. Prof. Hong has majored in MSE during his bachelor's, M.S., and Ph.D. from KAIST and is interested in materials imaging, atomic force microscopy, ferroelectric/piezoelectric materials, information and energy storage. Recently, Prof. Daniel S. Hong, in collaboration with Prof. Fraser Stoddart, reported the flexible, ferroelectric organic crystals based on trisubstituted haloimidazoles. Up to the present, combining both ferroelectricity and flexibility in one crystalline organic material has been proved challenging. In this work, it has been demonstrated that trisubstituted haloimidazoles not only possess ferroelectricity but also flexibility arising from the fine-tuning that is possible by disrupting the weak halogen bonds between the molecules. This article has been published in Nature Communications on Oct. 13 2016 last year.
Information about Prof. Daniel S. Hong’s laboratory will be introduced thoroughly as “Special Feature I” in the newsletter.

Prof. Byung-Guk Park's research achievements were selected as one of 10 science & technology news in 2016. The main content of research is the development of a high-density magnetic memory with a high-speed and low-power operation by introducing a new material, an antiferromagnet in spin-orbit torque-based magnetic random access memory (MRAM), which enables successful data writing without an external magnetic field. This result paves the way for the development of the MRAM of high-density and high density.

Prof. Seokwoo Jeon received the "Chung-woong Award" from Korean Institute of Metals and Materials held in BEXCO, Busan from Oct. 26 ~ 28, 2016. This award is given to members who are outstanding in academic and technical achievements in the fields of metals and materials.

Prof. Il-Doo Kim won the young ceramist award at the 2016 Fall Meeting of the Korean Ceramic Society Meeting held from Nov. 23 - Nov. 2016 in COEX Seoul. The young ceramist award, which was first established in 2014, is given to the researcher under age 45 who has shown outstanding achievements in the fields of ceramics.

Prof. Byung Tae Ahn received the GPVC Award in the 'Global Photovoltaic Conference 2017', which was held in Gwangju on Mar. 15, 2017.

KAIST-Masdar Institute joint workshop was held on Sep. 28 ~ Sep. 30, 2016 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE). In the workshop, department head (Prof. Hyuck Mo Lee), Prof. Byungha Shin, Prof. Steve Park, Prof. Keon Jae Lee, and Prof. EunAe Cho attended the workshop. The topic was on the advanced energy and sustainable technologies and about 10 professors from Masdar Institute attended.

KAIST Self-Assembly Symposium 2016 was held on October 4th at Applied Engineering building. Worldwide recognized scholars such as, Ian Manners(Univ. of Bristol), Jung Hee-Tae(KAIST), Paul F. Nealey(Univ. of Chigago), Ulrich B. Wiesner(Cornell Univ.), Teruaki Hayakawa( TITech), and Kim, Sang Ouk(KAIST) had presented their very recent research outcome, typically associated with self-assembly field. (Organized by prof. Sang Ouk Kim)

KAIST-Drexel Joint Workshop was hosted by materials research society (MRS) University Chapter members at KAIST in Republic of Korea and Drexel in the United States of America. Ph.D. student Jun Young Cheong at KAIST and Kathleen Maleski at Drexel co-organized the overall workshops, coupled with the session chairs for the workshop. It is expected that more MRS University chapter workshops can be held with other institutions in the near future.

Supported by Mnistry of Science, ICT and Future Planning and advanced research center selected by National Research Foundation, the opening of Wearable Platform Materials Center (ERC) was held on Nov. 1, 2016 at 2pm in the 1st floor Fusion Hall of KI building.

This year the awards ceremony took place on Feb. 17, 2017 at Professor’s meeting room. We have seen following awardees.
- Min-Jae Choi (adviser: Prof. Yeon Sik Jung) won the Excellent Paper Award for his doctoral thesis.
- Yonghee Lee (adviser: Prof. Duk Young Jeon) received Excellent Dissertation Award supported by KIMS (Korea Institute of Materials Science).

To give preferential treatment to excellent undergraduate students having fine record or holding great ideas, engineering college initiates Dean’s list policy. Following students were selected in the Dean’s List for 2016 Fall semester – Serin Lee, Seongjin Ju, Heegeun Song

Prof. Hyuck Mo Lee (Department Head) and Prof. Byung Tae Ahn met, guided, and encouraged the KAISt students sent to Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and National University of Singapore. This event has continued since 2015.

AT MSE, the meeting with foreign students was held on Sep. 13, 2016 About 10 students in the undergraduate, master and Ph.D. course and Department Head Prof. Hyuck Mo Lee and Prof. Byungha Shin attended the meeting, having a meaningful time.

Great number of students at MSE and other departments (physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemical and biomolecular engineering, technology management, undecided) visited LG Display on Nov. 13, 2016 and had conversation MSE alumni from KAISt and had an opprtunity to broaden their perspective in the fields of interest through industry visiting and experience program.

The MSE department introduction seminar was held at ChungMoonSoul buildling (E16) at 5pm on Nov. 14, 2016 for the freshman students to register for the their majors and about 120 students had attended and had some time with professors.