Professors of the YU School of Biotechnology made great achievements by winning an academic award and presidential citation.
Professor Lee Jong-wook (6) won the Gwanjeong Zoology Award. The Gwanjeong Zoology Award was founded with investments made by the family of the late Gwanjeong Cho Bok-seong, who was a pioneer of Korean biology, to remember his academic spirit and achievements. This is an academic award given to scholars with excellent research achievements in the zoology field every two years from 1980. This is the 18th awards this year.
Professor Lee Jong-wook has been actively engaged in research for over 40 years with over 200 research papers in the biology field being published in prominent domestic and international academic journals. He found over 600 species of unrecorded and new organisms, and thus received the Gwanjeong Zoology Award in recognition of his contributions to the development of Korean zoology.
After earning his PhD in zoology at Korea University, Professor Lee has been serving as a professor at YU from March 1986. He served as the dean at the YU Department of Biology, researcher at the American Entomological Institute (AEI), director at the Korean Society of Applied Entomology, and member of the Gyeongsangbuk-do Cultural Heritage Committee. He is also active as an auditor for the Entomological Society of Korea, director of the Korean Society of Zoology, operating committee member of the Korean Biodiversity Association, and editor of the Insecta Koreana Compilation Committee.
Prior to this in July, Professor Seok Ho-young (45) was awarded a presidential citation for his contribution to national development through environmental conservation activities at the National Nakdong River Bio Resources Center opening ceremony held in Sangju.
Professor Seok Ho-young has contributed greatly in establishing research technologies related to national bio resource preservation and diversity identification. Professor Seok has been participating as a researcher in research projects on the conservation and diversity of bio resources carried out by the National Bio Resource Center since 2011 such as research on systems of major fish resources, analytical research on genetic diversity of bio resources, and drafting wild invertebrates in the Korean Peninsula and barcode DNA analysis. In particular, he contributed to the establishment of the National Nakdong River Bio Resource Center by providing basic consulting and his activities as committee members of the Nakdong River Bio Resource Center from 2011 to 2014.
He also provided consultations for the National Bio Resource Center, Korea Rural Community Corporation, National Fisheries Research & Development Institute, Cultural Heritage Administration, and other institutes under the Ministry of Environment as a consultant for government and research institutes. In 2009 and 2013, also participated in the Unmunsan Natural Scenery Preservation Area selection ecological survey project led by the Daegu Provincial Environmental Office, as well as its follow-up monitoring project, as he actively participated in regional ecological protection projects.
After earning his PhD at the Seoul National University Department of Bio Sciences, Professor Seok worked as a researcher at the University of Western Ontario and University of Toronto, and then at Johns Hopkins Medicine in the US before being appointed as a professor at YU in March 2009.
