Ro Stastny
October 22, 2024
Felix Sunjoo Kim (Ph.D. ‘12)
Felix Kim stands next to a poster that hangs in Benson Hall, depicting research that he worked on as a Ph.D. student.
Professor and Department Chair, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea
Felix Kim earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Washington in 2012, advised by ChemE professor Samson Jenekhe. In reflecting on his experience as a student, Kim commended UW ChemE for fostering creative and collaborative learning environment, with accessible faculty who were always willing to provide guidance and expert advice to support him through his research and career development.
Kim is now a professor of chemical engineering at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, Korea and currently serves as the department chair. His research focuses on sustainable electronics and neuromorphic computing systems enabled by chemical engineering. Semiconductors and microchips have fundamentally changed the way that people live, and artificial intelligence (AI) is now accelerating that change. However, the current technology used to run AI is inefficient and requires too much energy to run. If there is no intervention, overlooking the sustainability of these systems will very quickly pose great energy challenges.
To address this, Kim is working on finding a solution to the increased energy demands of running artificial intelligence on high-power devices. He is working to develop electronic systems based on nature-derived materials and bio-inspired spiking neural networks to mimic the human brain, among other strategies to tackle the AI energy challenge. Kim has published over 100 research articles in peer-reviewed journals, and he currently holds eight patents. He has won several research and teaching awards, including the American Chemical Society National Award for Outstanding Graduate Research in Polymer Chemistry (2014) and the Chung-Ang University Excellent Young Faculty Grant (2018).
In October of this year Kim traveled from Seoul, Korea to receive his award in person, presented to him by Jenekhe. While visiting campus, Kim also gave a special seminar on polymer blends for electrochemical transistors and neuromorphic devices.