[Profile] Yoo Sang-im, Nominee for Minister of Science and ICT

Candidate for Minister of Science and ICT, Yoo Sang-im
[Photo by Yonhap News]

President Yoon Suk-yeol nominated Professor Yu Sang-im of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Seoul National University as the new Minister of Science and ICT on the 18th. Chief Secretary to the President Jeong Jin-seok announced this during a briefing at the Yongsan Presidential Office on the same day.

Professor Yu was born in 1959 in Yeongwol, Gangwon Province. He attended Yeongwol Elementary and Middle Schools, graduated from Gyeongbok High School in Seoul, and earned his bachelor's degree in Ceramic Engineering from Seoul National University. After obtaining a master's degree in Inorganic Materials Engineering from the same university, he earned a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Iowa State University in the United States.

He has served as a postdoctoral researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy Ames Laboratory, a visiting researcher at the Superconductivity Research Laboratory (SRL-ISTEC) in Japan, and a senior researcher at the Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) in Japan. He has also held positions as president of the Korean Society of Superconductivity and Cryogenics and the Korean Ceramic Society.

In 2000, he received the Science and Technology Award from the Superconductivity Science and Technology Research Association of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Academic Award from the Korean Society of Superconductivity and Cryogenics in 2009, and the SeAH Haeam Academic Award from the Korean Institute of Metals and Materials in 2016.

He is the older brother of Yu Sang-beom, a member of the National Assembly and the chief whip of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, and actor Yu Oh-seong.