'Not Class of 99 but Born in 99' KAIST's Youngest Professor... His Special Credentials

Passed GED and Entered UC Berkeley
Graduated in 2.5 Years with Double Majors
Completed Master's and PhD, Worked as Postdoc, Then Appointed

Professor Han Sujin, born in 1999, appointed as the youngest professor at KAIST.
[Photo source=KAIST homepage capture]

A record youngest professor born in 1999 has emerged at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).

According to KAIST on the 15th, Professor Han Sujin, born in 1999 and aged 24, was appointed as a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at KAIST at the end of last month. This appointment broke the previous record held by Choi Seohyun, who became a professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at KAIST in 2009 at the age of 26, making Han the youngest professor in history.

Professor Han’s background is impressive. He passed the GED at age 16 and entered the University of California, Berkeley in 2014. He then earned bachelor's degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and Applied Mathematics from UC Berkeley in the fall of 2016. In about two and a half years, he completed a double major and obtained his bachelor's degrees from UC Berkeley.

As a result, some speculated on an online community that Professor Han might have graduated by taking advantage of summer sessions and other methods to complete as many courses as possible.

Personal homepage screen of Professor Han Sujin, who was appointed as the youngest professor in the history of KAIST. [Photo from Professor Han Sujin's personal homepage capture]

At age 19, he was known to have published a paper as the first author in a Science Citation Index (SCI) level journal. In addition, several other papers were published in prestigious international academic journals. Subsequently, from 2017 until January of this year, Professor Han completed his master's and doctoral studies at the California Institute of Technology.

In the summer of 2018, he gained experience by working as an intern for three months at JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), and from February to August of this year, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Autonomous Robots and Control Laboratory (ARCL) at Caltech before being appointed as the youngest professor at KAIST.

It is reported that Professor Han is currently teaching students in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics.