Curriculum Vitae of Dr. SUH, Nam Pyo
Citizenship
U.S.
Current Positions
President, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) (2006 - )
Previous Positions
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
2008 - Present Ralph E. & Eloise F. Cross Professor, Emeritus
1991 - 2001 Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering 1990 - 1999 Director, Manufacturing Institute
2005 - 2006 Director, Park Center for Complex Systems
1989 - 2006 The Ralph E. & Eloise F. Cross Professor of
Manufacturing
1977 - 1984 Founding Director, Laboratory for Manufacturing
and Productivity
1973 - 1984 Founder and Director, MIT-Industry Polymer
Processing Program
1979 - 1984 Member, Engineering Council, MIT
1975 - 1977 Head, Mechanics and Materials Division, Dept. of
Mechanical Engineering
1975 Professor of Mechanical Engineering
1973 Tenured Associate Professor of Mechanical
Engineering
1970 Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C.
1984 - 1988 Assistant Director for Engineering
(President Reagan’s Appointee)
University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC.
1968 - 69 Associate Professor of Engineering
1965 - 68 Assistant Professor of Engineering
USM Corporation, Beverly, MA.
1961 - 65 Senior Research Engineer and Project Manager
(1962-63 at CMU)
Guild Plastics, Inc., Cambridge, MA.
1958 - 60 Development Engineer (half-time during academic
year, full-time in summer)
Education & Related
1955 Buckingham, Browne and Nichols School, Cambridge, MA.
1959 S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
1961 S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
1964 Ph.D., Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.
Honorary doctorates
1986 Eng. D. (Hon.), Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA.
1988 L.H.D. (Hon.), University of Massachusetts-Lowell, Lowell, MA.
2000 Tekn.Dr. hc, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
2007 D. Eng honoris causa, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
2007 Doctor Scientiarum Honoris Causa, the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
2008 Doctor of Science and Technology (Hon), Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
2009 Doctor Honoris Causa, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Rumania
Major Honors and Awards
44. The Gold Medal, Technical University of Denmark, May 6, 2011.
43 He, with the help of his colleagues at KAIST, invented Mobile Harbor (MH), 2009, which was featured by Reuters
42. His Invention (with the help of his colleagues at KAIST) OLEV Selected as the 50 Best Inventions of 2010, Time, 2010.
41. Korean-American Achievement Award, The Korea Economic Institute, 2011
40. The 2011 Transformative Achievement Medal, The Society for Design and Process Science (SDPS), 2011
39. The ASME Medal, ASME, 2009 (The highest award that the Society to recognize “eminently distinguished engineering achievement.” Maximum of only one awarded annually.)
38. Doctor Honoris Causa, Babes-Bolyai University, Rumania, 2009
37. Inchon Prize (Education), (인촌상) Inchon Memorial Foundation, 2008
36. Pony Chung Innovation Award, Pony Chung Foundation, 2008
35. Foreign member, National Academy of Engineering of Korea, 2008
34. Distinguished Alumni Award, Carnegie Mellon University, 2008
33. KAIST received the highest award from the President of Korea for its contributions, 2008.
32. Doctor of Science and Technology (Hon), Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 2008
31. Fellow, University of Tokyo, 2007
30. Doctor Scientiarum Honoris Causa, the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Israel, June 2007.
29. Lifetime Achievement Award, Society of Plastics Engineers, May 2007.
28. Doctor of Engineering honoris causa, The University of Queensland, Australia, May 2007
27. President, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 2006.
26. The General Pierre Nicolau Award, The highest award of CIRP given to one person (CIRP: Collége International pour l'Etude Scientifique des Techniques de Production Mécanique, also known as International Academy for Production Engineering), 2006.
25. The Academy Gold Medal of Honor, The Academy of Transdisciplinary Learning and Advanced Studies (Society for Design and Process Science), June 26, 2006.
24. Fellow, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, 2004.
23. The Hills Millennium Award of the Institution of Engineering Designers of the United Kingdom (First recipient), June 4, 2001.
22. The Mensforth International Gold Medal, The Institution of Electrical Engineers, United Kingdom, March 15, 2001.
21. Honorary Doctor (Tekn.Hedersdoktor), Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, 2000.
20. The 1997 Ho-Am Prize for Engineering, Ho-Am Committee, 1997.
19. Life member, The Korean Academy of Science and Technology, 1995.
18. Scholarly Achievement Award, KBS, 1995.
17. The Best Tribology Paper Award (with D. E. Kim), ASME, 1993.
16. William T. Ennor Manufacturing Technology Award, ASME, 1993.
15. Centennial Medallion of American Society for Engineering Education, 1993.
14. Ralph E. & Eloise F. Cross Professor, MIT, 1989.
13. Foreign member, The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science (IVA), 1988.
12. Distinguished Service Award, NSF, 1988.
11. Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA, 1988.
10. Life Fellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
9. Honorary Doctor of Engineering Degree, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 1986.
8. The F. W. Taylor Research Award, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, 1986.
7. Presidential Appointment by President Ronal Reagan to the National Science Foundation, 1984.
6. Special edition of Wear journal, devoted to the work of Suh and coworkers, 1977.
5. Selected by USM Corporation for company sponsored graduate study (with full pay) at Carnegie Mellon University, 1962.
4. Fellow, CIRP (Collége International pour l'Etude Scientifique des Techniques de Production Mécanique, also known as International Academy for Production Engineering), 1978.
3. Citation Classic by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) as one of the most quoted papers, "The Delamination Theory of Wear,” 1979.
2. Blackall Award of ASME for the Solution Wear Theory (with B. M. Kramer), 1982.
1. Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award of ASME and Pi Tau Sigma for pioneering work in the field of tribology: the Delamination Theory of Wear, 1976.
Other Honors and Award
1. SPE Award for Contribution in Tribology of Polymers (with J. R. Youn), 1981.
2. Who's Who in America. Who's Who in Science and Technology.
3. Pi Tau Sigma. Phi Kappa Phi.
4. Sigma Xi.
5. Federal Engineer of the Year, NSF, National Society of Professional Engineers, 1987.
6. Who’s Who in The World.
7. Honorary Professor and The William Mong Lecturer/Fellow, The University of Hong Kong, 2003.
8. Honorary Advisory Professor, Shanghai Jiaotong University, China, 2005.
9. Product of the Year award, for the Woven Connector (Low R) presented at the Power Electronics Technology conference, Baltimore, Tuesday, October 25, 2005.
10. Top ten leaders of Korea in 2007, named by Leaderpia magazine, December 2007 (Hunet)
11. “Proud Korean” award (자랑스런한국인대상) for educational contributions by the Korea Association of Journalists (한국언론인연합회), 2008.
12. MIT Geospatial Data Center created “Prof Nam Suh Award for Multidisciplinary Innovation in Design of Software Systems”
13. Fellow, PICMET, Portland, Oregon
Publications
1. Over 300 scholarly papers on topics such as:
Axiomatic design principles and methodologies
Complexity theory
Functional periodicity
Delamination theory of wear.
Solution wear theory
Friction space and friction theory.
Reaction injection molding.
Solid state forming.
Mixalloy process.
Engineering education
Microcellular Plastics
On-Line Electric Vehicle (OLEV)
R&D policy
Theory of Innovation
2. Books:
a) Elements of the Mechanical Behavior of Solids (with A.P.L. Turner), McGraw-Hill, 1975.
b) The Delamination Theory of Wear, Elsevier, 1977.
c) Tribophysics, Prentice-Hall, 1986. (Translated into Chinese)
d) The Principles of Design, Oxford University Press, 1990. (Translated into Japanese and Korean)
e) Axiomatic Design: Advances and Applications, Oxford University Press, 2001
(Translated into Chinese and Korean)
f) Complexity: Theory and Applications, Oxford University Press, 2005.
g) Axiomatic Design and Fabrication of Composite Structures, (With Dai Gil Lee) Oxford University
Press, 2006.
3. Edited Books:
a) Fundamentals of Tribology (with N. Saka), MIT Press, 1980.
b) Science and Technology of Polymer Processing (with N. Sung), MIT Press, 1979.
c) University/Industry Cooperation, NSF publication, 1982 (with B. M. Kramer).
d) Manufacturing Engineering, (In manuscript form, Principal Author & Editor).
Patents
More than 70 U.S. patents and 40 ROK patents pending (and many foreign patents)
Some of the important patents include:
• Electrostatic charge decay NDE technique (Product of QEA, Inc., Burlington, MA).
• Method for making laminated plastic molded parts (product of Sweetheart Plastics).
• Tough plastics.
• Electrostatic mixing apparatus.
• Mixalloys(Trademark of Sutek Corp).
• Minute moisture measuring system for polymers (Trademark– Axiometer).
• Low-energy solvent separation using spinodal decomposition.
• Microcellular plastics (Commercial trademark – MuCell, Trexel, Inc).
• Axiomatic design software (Trademark – Acclaro, Axiomatic Design Software, Inc).
• Mobile harbor (MH), KAIST, 2008
• On-Line Electric Vehicle (OLEV), KAIST, 2008
Other Professional Activities
A. Current
• Trustee, The King Abdulllah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia (2011)
• International Advisory Board (IAB), Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research (KUSTAR), UAE, (2011)
• International Advisory Board (IAB), King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (2010)
• Founder and the former member of the board of directors, Trexel, Inc., Woburn, MA. (1995)
• Founder and Member of the Board of Directors, Axiomatic Design Software, Inc., Boston, MA. (1998)
• Member of the Board of Directors, Parker Vision, Inc., Jacksonville, FL. (2003)
• Member of editorial board of the following journals, among others:
Polymer Processing Engineering
International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology
Research in Engineering Design
Advanced Manufacturing Processes
Journal of Manufacturing Systems
Journal of Design manufacturing
Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing
B. Past
• National Science and Technology Committee, Korea (member)
• President, Korea Accreditation Board of Engineering Education of Korea
• Consultant, Pharos (Levitronix), Inc.
• Member of the Board of Directors, Integrated Device Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA.
• Editor, MIT/Pappalardo Series of Mechanical Engineering Books, Oxford University Press
• Chairman, New Economic Growth Engine Planning Team, Ministry of Knowledge and Economy
• Series Editor, Advanced Manufacturing Engineering Series, Oxford University Press.
• Co-Founder and Member of the Board of Directors, Tribotek, Inc., Burlington, MA. (Technology is now acquired by Methode Electronics, Inc.)
• Visiting Faculty (part-time), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
• Member, Strategy Panel on Global War on Terrorism, Department of Defense.
• Member, Advisory Council Member, Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA.
• Member of the Board of Directors, Silicon Valley Group, Inc., San Jose, CA.
• Member of the Board of Directors, Integrated Circuit Systems, Inc., Valley Forge, PA.
• Member of the Board of Directors, Therma Wave, Inc., Fremont, CA.
• Co-Editor-in-Chief, Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, an international journal.
• Founder and Chairman of the Board, Sutek Corporation (formerly Mixalloy Corporation), Hudson, MA. • Member, Technical Advisory Committee, Alcan Aluminum Corporation, Cambridge, MA.
• Visiting committee member of the following mechanical engineering departments, Texas A&M University, Stanford University, University of Michigan, and the University of California at Berkeley.
• Chief Technical Advisor, United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
• Consultant, World Bank. (Created the 1980-85 Five-Year Economic Development Plan of Republic of Korea).
• Member of the board, Surftech Corporation, Nashua, NH.
• Consultant to many corporations throughout the world, including Ford, Mercedes Benz, Lockheed Martin, Alcoa, among others.
• Member of the Scientific and Technical Board, Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.
• Member of the NRC Panel for the National Engineering Laboratory.
• Member of the Visiting Committee (Statutory) on Advanced Technology, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of Commerce, 1991-1994.
• Member of the Advisory Committee, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
• Chairman, the Overseas Advisory Committee, the BK 21 Program, Ministry of Education, Republic of Korea.
• CIRP (STC Design, Chairman).
• Member of a Research Award Committee of ASEE.
• ENDREA Program, Scientific Committee, Sweden.
• Review Panel, Kplus Center Program, Austria.
• Visiting Faculty, University of Tokyo and Yonsei University.
• The William Mong Distinguished Fellow, University of Hong Kong, 2002.
Other Accomplishments
Since his inauguration as KAIST President in 2006, Dr. Suh has made the goal of making KAIST one of the best science and technology universities in the world. To achieve this goal, he has made a number of important changes in governance, academic structure, curriculum, faculty tenure policy, and research structure of KAIST. He has initiated major research and educational activities in energy, environment, water, and sustainability (EEWS) and “high risk high return” (HRHR) projects. He also strengthened the fields related to IT, BT, NT, and complex systems. He created the KAIST Institute to promote multi- and cross-disciplinary research in emerging fields. Under his leadership, eleven new buildings (The BJ and Chunghi Park KI Bldg., the Pappalardo Medical Center, Apartments for International Faculty, two Undergraduate Dormitories, The BH Kim IT Building, animal facility, International Center, The GC Liu Sports Complex, MS Chung Building II, The Natural Science Bldg.) were either constructed or being constructed. Also old buildings were renovated to expand the space for cultural science fields. Several new departments and graduate schools were created, including the Department of Ocean Systems, the Department of Knowledge Systems Engineering, and the Graduate Schools for Green Transportation, and the Graduate School for Nano Science and Technology. He has also increased the funding from government and private sources. In 2007, KAIST received the highest award from the President of Korea for its contributions. Under his leadership, KAIST’s worldwide ranking conducted by QS/London Times has jumped from around 200 to 69th overall and 21st in engineering in 2009. At KAIST, he invented the On-Line Electric Vehicle (OLEV), which was selected one of the 50 Best Inventions of 2010 by Time, and also the Mobile Harbor (MH). He successfully executed the merger of ICU and KAIST in 2009. KAIST asset doubled to more than $1 billion in 2009.
Dr. Suh is the creator of the axiomatic design theory. The theory and methodology for design have been adopted by many industrial firms and taught at many universities and industrial firms throughout the world. The axiomatic design principles have been used to create new materials, products, processes, systems, software, and organizations. He taught a large number of industrial engineers, including automotive companies, aerospace companies, and defense industries. He has received many awards and honors for this work.
He also advanced a complexity theory and the concept of Functional Periodicity for the creation of stable systems. He has given many plenary lectures at international conferences on complexity theory and axiomatic design theory.
He has made major contributions in the field of tribology by advancing theories and practical solutions: the delamination theory of wear, solution wear, genesis of friction, undulated surfaces, electrical connectors, and others. He won many awards and honors for this work.
Innovative electrical connector design, commercialized by Tribotek, Inc., was recognized as the product of the year by Power Electronics Technology magazine, in 2005.
His invention of OLEV was selected one of the 50 Best Inventions of 2010 by Time.
In 1973, Professor Suh established the first university/industry cooperative research program at MIT known as the MIT-Industry Polymer Processing Program, which became a model in establishing similar programs at many other universities by NSF and in formulating the Stevenson-Wydler Innovation Act of 1981 by U. S. Congress. He has also created many innovative polymer-processing techniques, in addition to generating many of the leading academics in the field of polymer processing. He has received many patents in polymer processing and related fields.
Among the many new materials, products and manufacturing processes invented by him are: Microcellular plastics (known as MuCell and used commercially worldwide), Mixalloy, USM high pressure foam molding technology (used world wide), electrostatic charge-decay NDE technique, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, Low R electrical connectors, low friction surfaces, and foam/straight plastic lamination process (a major industrial product). Recently, he invented the On-Line Electric Vehicle (OLEV) and the Mobile Harbor (MH). Many of these have been commercialized.
The MIT Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity (of which Professor Suh was the founder and first Director until his NSF appointment) became one of the world's largest and most successful laboratories of its kind.
His inventions have become the basis for several successful commercial and industrial technologies. He founded several companies based on these technologies. Microcellular plastics are widely used worldwide (tradename: MuCell, Trexel, Inc.). Woven electrical connectors are an award winning disruptive technology, marketed by Tribotek, Inc. Software that are used in design, Acclaro, is a product of Axiomatic Design Solutions, Inc. Mixalloy was successfully developed and commercialized by Sutek, Inc.
Professor Suh has supervised approximately 50 PhDs and 70 SMs in the fields of materials processing, mechanical engineering, tribology, design, and manufacturing. His former students now number among the most promising educators and industrial engineers in the world.
He was the principal architect of the highly successful Five-Year Economic Plan of Korea for the Period 1980 --1985.
Upon his appointment to the National Science Foundation by President Reagan, Dr. Suh instituted new structure and policies for engineering education and research to prepare for a new era. His plans received strong endorsements from U.S. Congress and the Administration. Many distinguished researchers and educators joined him at NSF to implement the new programs for engineering education and research. Dr. Suh created programs for design theory and methodology, biotechnology, computer-integrated engineering, emerging technologies, critical technologies, the Engineering Research Centers, Expedited Grants for Novel Research, Creativity Grants, and the University-Industry-Government Cooperative Program for engineering education. For his contributions, he received the Distinguished Service Award of the National Science Foundation.
As the Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, Professor Suh worked with his colleagues to elevate the already highest ranked department to a higher level of excellence by establishing clear macro-strategic goals and carefully developing and implementing programs and activities to achieve these goals. He established the following goals, which were achieved during his tenure as Department Head:
1. Transformation of the mechanical engineering field from a discipline primarily based on physics to
a discipline based on physics, information and biology.
2. Concentration of the two ends (rather than the middle) of the research spectrum – basic research
and technology innovation – where the impact on knowledge base and society is the largest.
3. Improvement of undergraduate education by providing a right context for learning, integrating
engineering science subjects, providing hands-on experience in design and manufacturing, and
simultaneously teaching design and analysis in all subjects.
4. Emphasis on interdisciplinary research at the interface between traditional mechanical engineering
and information, biology, and energy, which have resulted in the creation of the d’Arbeloff
Laboratory for Information Systems, the Laboratory for BioInstrumentation, Hatosopoulos
Microfluids Laboratory, Auto ID center, and the Laboratory for 21st Century Energy. Thanks to his
efforts, the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering has some of the finest teaching and
research laboratories in the world.
The educational goal of the Department is to prepare MIT students for leadership in their chosen fields. To achieve this goal, an innovative undergraduate curriculum was adopted. This curriculum incorporates many new ideas and pedagogical innovations. The BJ and Chunghi Park Lecture Halls were created to enable a “self-discovery” form of learning, as well as more traditional forms of lecturing. He also raised a substantial sum of money from MIT alumni/ae and industrial corporations to renovate and endow undergraduate teaching laboratories and to establish endowed senior and junior faculty chairs. Also to encourage and support faculty efforts in teaching-materials development, an endowment fund for book-writing was created. Oxford University Press through its MIT/Pappalardo Series of Mechanical Engineering Books will publish the books written with the support of this endowment fund.
Professor Suh also established the Manufacturing Institute at MIT to provide an educational mechanism for teaching engineering systems and to strengthen the interaction between MIT and industry, by conducting industrially funded research in the field of large systems and by creating more effective technology transfer mechanisms.
His major achievement as Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department was the hiring of the brightest young professors from many fields – mechanical engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, physics, and optics -- who had already become leaders in their respective fields. Nearly 40% of the department faculty of 60 were hired during his tenure.
Professional Societies
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers (Life Fellow; Chairman, Productivity Committee, 1982-84).
• American Society for Engineering Education.
• International Academy for Production Engineering (CIRP) (Fellow; Former Chairman: Design STC).
• Society of Plastics Engineers.
• Society of Manufacturing Engineers (Fellow).
• Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (Foreign Member).
• Korean Academy of Science and Technology (Life Fellow).
• National Academy of Engineering, Korea (Foreign member)
• American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Personal
He was born in Korea on April 22, 1936, and immigrated to the U.S. in 1954 to join his father who was teaching at Harvard University. He completed his high school education at Browne & Nichols School before entering MIT as a freshman in 1955. He was naturalized in 1963 in Pittsburgh, PA. Nam P. Suh is married to Young J. Suh (née Surh). They have four daughters, four sons-in-law, and six grandchildren.
(November 2010)