Three new directors for Institute for Basic Science, South Korea
December 18^th, 2014

Dr. Sergej Flach, Dr. Kyungjae Myung, and Dr. Minhaeng Cho selected to head new research centers

The Institute for Basic Science (IBS) has announced that Dr. Sergej Flach, a professor from Massey University, New Zealand, Dr. Kyungjae Myung, the senior investigator and section head with tenure from the National Institutes of Health, USA, and Dr. Minhaeng Cho, a professor from Korea University have been selected as research directors to launch new IBS research centers.

Dr. Sergej Flach is an international scholar in the field of theoretical physics, specializing in condensed matter, quantum and classical nonlinear physics at the nanoscale. He has demonstrated his strong leadership abilities as the head of the Visitors Program at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems (MPI-PKS) from 1997 until 2012, which was a key contributing factor to advances made in theoretical physics.

Dr. Kyungjae Myung is a leading scientist in genomic integrity. He will found the Center for Genomic Integrity at the UNIST campus, Ulsan, Korea and will research genome stability and chemotherapeutic application. In addition, his studies of DNA repair pathways are expected to lead the development of therapeutics for many human diseases including cancers.

Dr. Minhaeng Cho is one of the most influential trailblazers in the research field of coherent multidimensional optical and vibrational spectroscopy. He was the director of the Center for Multi-dimensional Spectroscopy at Korea University from 2000 until 2009. His research center will unveil the structure and dynamic characterization of complex systems with multiple techniques.

“Each of these newly selected directors is an international pioneer in challenging, creative research,” explains IBS President Doochul Kim. “I anticipate their significant contributions to greatly enhance the environment of basic research in Korea.”

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Notes for editors

• For further information or to request media assistance, please contact: Mr. Han Bin Oh, Overseas Public Relations Officer, IBS Public Relations Team (+82-42-878-8182; ohanvin@ibs.re.kr)

• About Institute for Basic Science (IBS)
  The IBS was founded in 2011 by the government of the Republic of Korea. With the sole purpose of driving forward the development of basic science in Korea, IBS will be comprised of a total of 50 research centers in all fields of basic science, including mathematics, physics, chemistry, life science, earth science and interdisciplinary science. IBS has launched 24 research centers as of December 2014. There is one mathematics, eight physics, seven chemistry, seven life science, and an interdisciplinary research centers each.