August 19, 2024
The International Engineering and Technology Institute (IETI) is proud to announce that Sang Yup Lee has been officially elected as its new Vice President following a global voting process concluded on August 19. Professor Lee will serve a four-year term, effective immediately.
The election saw participation from distinguished professors representing multiple countries, ensuring a diverse and representative mandate. Professor Lee emerged as the successful candidate with an overwhelming majority—securing more than two-thirds of the votes—highlighting broad international recognition of his academic leadership, groundbreaking research, and commitment to advancing global engineering and technology collaboration.
Professor Lee is a pioneering scholar in metabolic engineering and systems and synthetic biology, currently holding the positions of Senior Vice President for Research and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). His career is marked by transformative contributions to the field, including:
Founding the discipline of systems metabolic engineering;
Developing microorganisms for the first-time production of critical compounds (e.g., gasoline, diacids, diamines, PLA/PLGA polymers);
Being named a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher (HCR) for four consecutive years (2017–2020);
Becoming the first Korean Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors (NAI) in 2017;
Being one of only 13 scholars worldwide elected as a foreign fellow of both the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and National Academy of Engineering (NAE);
Leading key interdisciplinary initiatives at KAIST (e.g., Senior Vice President for Research of KAIST).
In his new role as IETI Vice President, Professor Lee will focus on strengthening international academic partnerships, promoting knowledge sharing in cutting-edge engineering and technology fields, and supporting initiatives that address global challenges through innovation.