Stony Brook University SUNY Korea

SUNY Korea FIT graduating students had an Opening Ceremony for their AAS (Associate in Applied Science) exhibition on June 11th . The graduating student exhibition features the works of fourteen graduating students from the Fashion Design Department.   President Wonki Min gave congratulatory remarks for the graduating Fashion Design students. Following on from that, FIT professors Leonard Bess and Koo Bonkuk gave congratulatory speeches for the students during the event.     The students’ works of beautifully-made garments, which were displayed at the Hyundai Premium Outlet on June 5th, will be presented at the SUNY Korea Museum from June 14th to June 18th. The clothes reflect the inspiration from the historical clothing from 1920 to 1970 combined with the new trend of floral trace and sweet romance.   We send our sincere congratulations to the graduating FIT students for their splendid works of art!

Can a Focus on Empathy and Trust Guide Our Taste in Choosing the Right Problems to Solve?   Written by Chihmao Hsieh    In his inauguration speech earlier this year, Lee Kwang-hyung, the new president of KAIST, remarked “KAIST는 앞으로 인류가 당면한 문제를 찾아 정의하고 해결하는 것에 중점을 둬야 한다”.  This is a fundamental issue in entrepreneurship: the opportunities that we find depend on how we search for solutions to a problem, but also how we formulate problems in the first place. For example, we all know that it’s not easy to park a car in Seoul.  If we formulate the problem as a lack of parking spaces, then maybe we should build more parking garages. However, if the problem is that there are too many idle cars, then we should better optimize public transportation, ride sharing, or the taxi system. Or maybe we decide that cars are currently too big, and smaller cars will be easier to navigate in tight spaces.  These three different problem formulations all lead to very different technological directions.  Indeed, our taste in the problems that we identify today affects the decisions and socio-technological environment that we have tomorrow.   These days, society is addressing various problems with the aid of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence and robotics.  Recent innovations certainly save money.  Coffee barista robots don’t get tired.  Digital news anchors don’t need health insurance. And self-driving trucks don’t ask for pensions. While jobs are at risk of being lost, new jobs will be created.  In the near term, for example, we still need people to maintain the robots that make the coffee or fix the trucks that deliver our packages. Technological advances are fundamentally entangled with the changing human tasks and jobs on this planet.   Set aside the idea of universal basic income, for now.  We face three issues: which problems to solve, what technologies to develop, and how to identify and design the tasks and jobs eventually performed by humans.  There is no magic equation that explains how this all actually unfolds.  Often, even, new scientific technologies emerge so quickly that they arrive before we know what problems they should solve.  With increasingly advanced AI, where applications are so broad and dramatic, we should stop to think:  How do we formulate and choose which problems to solve?   One diagnosis would require us to work backwards: ask ourselves how we want future society and work culture to reflect core values of humanity, and then use that vision to help constrain and guide the kinds of technologies we develop and the kinds of problems that we address.   Recent research on service industries suggests that AI will tend to first replace mechanically-oriented jobs, then analysis-oriented jobs, then intuition-oriented jobs, and finally empathy-oriented jobs, in that order.  Opinions differ regarding the overall timeline.  However, building and refining a stronger culture for empathy now will help preserve a basis of humanity at work and in society, protecting ourselves from the most damaging economics of AI.  Human empathy is not particularly scalable, but maybe we also should not be trying to make it scalable. should not be scalable.  Marketing staff, news reporters, nurses, teachers and countless other occupations today can make valuable use of human empathy, and we should support that kind of sociocultural direction. On a broad scale, more products and services can be created to enable people to exhibit, share, and promote empathy, at work and at home. In the future, hopefully still more different kinds of empathy-oriented jobs can emerge.   Besides empathy, we should also consider the importance of preserving the importance of trust in interactions between humans.  This issue hasn’t been addressed much; instead, most scholars and policymakers today are worried about how we humans could best learn to trust AI.  But there’s an important conceptual distinction between how humans trust AI and how they trust other humans.  On one hand, trust between humans requires an element of vulnerability to others’ self-interest: if a father promises his child that he will drive her to an evening hagwon exam, she trusts him that he won’t get drunk while partying with co-workers, then arriving late to pick her up.  On the other hand, machines and robots have no self-interest; we merely trust them to function reliably and make fewer errors than us.  As our interactions become increasingly mediated by computerized technology and AI, we position ourselves to learn to “trust” and “forgive” computers and robots more than we maintain our ability and capacity to trust and forgive each other.  As a civilized society, shouldn’t we be developing technology and policy that ultimately helps humans trust and empathize with each other more, not less?   Recent developments offer potential case studies.  Aria, for example, represents AI by SK Telecom that has been shown to empathetically stimulate senior citizens’ cognition and delay onset of dementia, while also doubling their daily travel distances.  But does the AI-based replication of the late Kim Kwang-Seok’s voice and singing help to foster empathy or fulfill egos?  Are recently developed AI-based ‘digital girlfriends’ more likely to support or cheapen cultural norms of human trust and empathy?  While it’s true that business ventures should often be excused for generating ‘negative externalities’ (부정적인 외부효과), we should be actively avoiding those negative externalities that fundamentally discount any core value of humanity.   Formulating the right problems, developing supportive technological solutions, and fostering meaningful jobs should be simultaneous considerations that will require business and government to have good taste.  But good taste in the value of human empathy and trust is not straightforward.  For example, empathy should not completely stifle competitive spirit, and sometimes trust between business partners should not cut off valuable exploration of the business environment.  As countries—including South Korea—race to become world leaders in commercializing AI-based technology, they should all respect the responsibility of choosing what entrepreneurial directions we take.  Overall, having good taste in humanity is simply becoming more valuable than ever.  Hopefully AI won’t become an expert in that too.      Click here to read the article

A research paper written by DTS undergraduate students, Tae-Yun Kim, Soo-min Kim, Tae-woong Yoon, and Do-hyun Oh under Professor Neal Dreamson’s supervision, has been published in an academic journal, Korean Journal of Converging Humanities (Volume 9, Issue 2, page 1-22). Korean Journal of Converging Humanities is a journal registered on KCI (Korea Citation Index), published on a quarterly basis. The paper was an outcome from their study in a course, EST 441 Interdisciplinary Senior Project, Fall 2020.      In the paper, the team critically reviews the concepts of smart cities and human smart cities using three well-known smart cities’ plans including Barcelona, Dubai, and Singapore. The team discovers that the plans contain anti-humanism and anti-non-humanism (or anthropocentrism). The team argues for three posthumanist dimensions: non-dualism, more-than-humans, and ecological community to make smart cities free from anthropocentrism. The team develops a conceptual framework for post-humanist smart cities to ensure that the next generation of smart cities becomes inclusive of all humans, non-humans, and more-than-humans.     Below are the testimonial statements of the students.     Tae Yun: The production of this research paper enables me to have a new perspective on technology that coexists with the present society we live in. Defining the right use of a city and technology from a different (and whole new) perspective was the biggest challenge but, at the same time, was the biggest harvest of learning.     Soomin: I had been interested in policies regarding Smart Cities, and this opportunity helped me open up new perspectives towards the topic. I'm happy to see our paper got published in the academic journal as an extension of the college course. I was thankful to work with a great team and learn deeply about the research process.     Taewoong: I have learned a lot academically in the process of writing this research paper, and I deeply felt that there were things I needed to study more after all. I sincerely thank Professor Neal Dreamson. Prof. Dreamson has given us a lot of feedback. I also appreciate our team members, who have always commented on revising and supplementing with meticulousness.     Dohyun: What I gained from this paper is that I learned the proper way of critical review. A critical review is not just criticizing a topic but continuously questioning and evaluating a topic.        

SUNY Korea FIT had a fashion show at the Songdo Hyundai Premium Outlet on June 5th. With “Nostalgia” as the theme, the show demonstrated the works of FIT Fashion Design students from NDGC (Natural Dye Garden Club).      FIT students not only designed the works, but also participated as the models during the show.     Exhibition of students’ works, Natural Dye Workshop, MSC's fashion merchandise, IVY’s fashion magazine, and admission booths were also set up during the event.   We truly appreciate the hard work of our FIT students and the coaching of FIT faculty members for such spectacular fashion works!      *Related article: Click here 

April 16, 2021     In the Oscar-nominated film Minari, a family of working-class Korean immigrants moves to rural Arkansas. The props that convey the Yi family’s hardscrabble life were researched and sourced by Stacy Suvino, Visual Presentation and Exhibition Design ’08. Working alongside a production designer and set decorator, Suvino, the film’s buyer and set dresser, scoured stores near the filming location in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in addition to Facebook Marketplace. Though Minari is set in 1983, she shopped for items from the ’70s, because the Yi family  couldn’t afford new decor. Each character had a color story; props support mood as well. The “haunted” dresser was found at River City Trading Post, a local antique shop. Suvino was convinced that the Yi family needed a small oscillating electric fan, but it was hard to find. An owner of the Trading Post eventually offered one from their personal collection. Also difficult to procure was a classic ’70s couch with blocky lines and bold, rust-hued polyester fabric; the style is trending again, making prime specimens rare. A store run by the H.O.W. Foundation, which helps men struggling with alcohol or drug addiction, proved to be a trove for props: “We hit that place every week,” Suvino says, happy the purchases served a purpose.  In the Oscar-nominated film Minari, a family of working-class Korean immigrants moves to rural Arkansas. The props that convey the Yi family’s hardscrabble life were researched and sourced by Stacy Suvino, Visual Presentation and Exhibition Design ’08.   Working alongside a production designer and set decorator, Suvino, the film’s buyer and set dresser, scoured stores near the filming location in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in addition to Facebook Marketplace. Though Minari is set in 1983, she shopped for items from the ’70s, because the Yi family  couldn’t afford new decor. Each character had a color story; props support mood as well. The “haunted” dresser was found at River City Trading Post, a local antique shop. Suvino was convinced that the Yi family needed a small oscillating electric fan, but it was hard to find. An owner of the Trading Post eventually offered one from their personal collection. Also difficult to procure was a classic ’70s couch with blocky lines and bold, rust-hued polyester fabric; the style is trending again, making prime specimens rare. A store run by the H.O.W. Foundation, which helps men struggling with alcohol or drug addiction, proved to be a trove for props: “We hit that place every week,” Suvino says, happy the purchases served a purpose.  Aspiring Hollywood set designers, take heed: Suvino’s story of breaking in exemplifies persistence, bravery, and making the most of a coincidence. It just so happened that the third season of HBO’s show True Detective was filming in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where her parents live, and they knew the owners of the warehouse where it was being shot. Suvino’s dad sent her a photo of the front door of the warehouse, which had a sign with a cell phone number on it. “Call that number,” he told her. It turned out to be the show’s production manager. He told her they already had a crew. Undaunted, Suvino went home for the weekend and visited the site, resume in hand. When a secretary called in the production designer to show him her CV, he said, “You’re the one with the dad!” She told him, “I really want to be here.” The set designer was “crewed up” for the duration, he said; but the team admired her fortitude and encouraged her to call again. Every week for four months, she did. Each time, they told her no. Suvino gave up, and packed up her car to head home. Thirty minutes outside Fayetteville, her phone rang. Someone was fired, and they wanted Suvino to step in. She worked on the show for over three months, staying late every night so she could learn how the production worked.    Today, Suvino lives in Atlanta, a new hub for film production, and she’s racking up credits: She’s worked on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and a new show for F/X, Reservation Dogs. She has an agent for commercials and editorial, but she hopes to work as a production designer for Steven Spielberg. In the meantime, she’s proud of her contributions to Minari. “It’s a version of the American dream,” she says, “and I think people are looking for hope right now.”  Click here to read the original article 

April 5, 2021 FIT is advancing its investment in experiential learning through the launch of DTech Live, a series of interactive events powered by Bambuser, that will connect designers directly with consumers for a live shopping experience. An extension of FIT’s Innovation Center and a first-of-its-kind initiative in higher education, DTech Live fosters innovation by practice, facilitating the exploration of business and creativity through emerging technology and real-world experience. DTech Live debuts Tuesday, April 6, at 1 pm, with 7 Collections, a fashion pilot featuring the extraordinary work of FIT alumni from seven countries, all of whom earned MFAs in Fashion Design.  FIT was selected by Bambuser as its first partner from the global higher education category. A worldwide leader in interactive live video shopping, Bambuser is the platform of choice for companies such as Moda Operandi, Farfetch, and Clarins that are seeking deeper connections with customers across digital platforms. “We are pleased to provide FIT’s emerging designers with the exclusive opportunity to leverage the same new technology that is driving innovation for some of the world’s leading luxury fashion and beauty brands,” said Dr. Joyce F. Brown, president of FIT. “We are especially proud to debut 7 Collections to a broad audience, expanding FIT’s commitment to supporting new alumni in their role as valued contributors to the creative economy.” During the 7 Collections presentation, the audience was invited to view garments shown in engaging videos; watch one-on-one conversations with the designers and Dr. Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT; engage in a live chat; and have the opportunity to purchase a selection of custom made-to-order items from the collections of these emerging designers. The alumni discussed their inspiration, what comes next in their careers, and how they were influenced by their diverse backgrounds and geographies. Items available for purchase include head-to-toe looks as well as dresses, coats, and accessories. All proceeds from sales will go directly to the designers who will have full oversight of garment customization and fulfillment. “7 Collections celebrates beautiful design while seamlessly connecting creativity to commerce,” said Cathleen Sheehan, professor and acting chair, Fashion Design MFA. “Through this experience, the designers overcame the challenges of the pandemic to focus on craftsmanship while remaining true to their artistic vision. The breadth of themes and approaches represented is very exciting, and we can’t wait to watch these designers shape the future of fashion.” FIT’s partnership with Bambuser enables unprecedented experimentation with the next generation of fashion design talent. “FIT is a widely respected force of positive transformation in fashion and other creative industries worldwide, making them a perfect partner for Bambuser,“ said Maryam Ghahremani, CEO of Bambuser. “As our first collaboration with an educational institution, we view our relationship with FIT as a perfect opportunity to nurture the next generation of fashion industry talent and provide insights for working across the entire value chain. We look forward to innovating together to drive the future of interactive customer experiences.” DTech Live, the latest launch from the FIT DTech Lab (dtech.fitnyc.edu), is reimagining how designers and brands connect with consumers. “Innovation requires tremendous determination, resilience, and agility,” said Michael Ferraro, executive director of DTech Lab. “The designers featured in 7 Collections developed these critical career skills through a learning environment that models professional practice and closely connects students to industry.” DTech Live will continue to bring together students, faculty, and industry partners to experiment and solve real-world problems at the intersection of creativity, commerce, and technology. Its next project is set to debut in the fall. Click here to read the original article 

March 18, 2021 FIT’s student-run fashion and culture magazine, Blush, has won a 2020 Pacemaker Award from the Associated Collegiate Press for the second year in a row. The Pacemaker, considered the “Pulitzer Prize of collegiate journalism,” is judged by teams of professionals based upon coverage and content, quality of writing and reporting, leadership, design, photography, and graphics. In this national competition, Blush was one of nine chosen in the four-year feature magazine category. “The Pacemaker is the association’s preeminent award,” Associated Collegiate Press executive director Laura Widmer said. “ACP is honored to recognize the best of the best.” Gary Lundgren, ACP associate director and coordinator of the Pacemaker competition, noted that the quality of the winning collegiate magazines rivals those produced by professionals. “The verbal and visual storytelling in the winning magazines is incredible and robust long-form stories combine with shorter quick-reads to pace the reader through the pages of the feature magazines,” Lundgren said. The Blush team submitted their fall 2019 "Ferromagnetic" issue for the 2019–20 academic year. Due to the pandemic, the student organization was unable to submit a typical spring 2020 issue. Blush also won the Pacemaker in 2019, the first year they submitted an entry. The Pacemaker awards were announced during the ACP/College Media Association Fall National College Media Convention awards ceremony, presented virtually on Oct. 22. Click here to read the original article 

March 11, 2021 FIT President Joyce F. Brown has issued comments regarding racist attacks and hate speech directed at Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders. Her statements read as follows: March 19, 2021 Dear FIT community, Recently, I put out a statement condemning anti-Asian rhetoric and violence. It deeply saddens me to think about the number of statements I have issued over the years condemning hate speech—speech that incites the ugly instincts that some harbor against the “other”—people not like themselves. I think of this as I consider the disaster in Atlanta with eight beautiful lives lost, six of them Asian women. I write now to highlight and support the joint statement put out by the SUNY and CUNY boards of trustees condemning this act of racism and hatred. What happened in Atlanta is intolerable—what happens in every city and town and rural country road that harms anyone because of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation is intolerable. So today I add my voice to what I hope is a thunderous chorus—a roar of condemnation—from every corner of this country protesting the twisted thinking that produces hate speech and violence and in this case, particularly, violence against Asian women. I refuse to believe that our voices are not effective tools for change. I will continue to speak out and I hope this long loud volley of support brings some solace to the Asian American community, including, of course, our own Asian community at FIT—the students, faculty, and staff members of Asian descent who make up so large and dynamic a part of FIT’s richly diverse family. Dr. Joyce F. BrownPresidentFashion Institute of Technology March 11, 2021 Dear FIT community, There is a long history of anti-Asian sentiment in American society. This continues in spite of the fact that our Asian colleagues, businesses, students and visitors are an integral part of the rich mosaic not only of the FIT community but of our cosmopolitan city as well. In the past year, anti-Asian rhetoric and hate-filled speech have ratcheted up and been reinforced by public statements and private actions such that overt discrimination and violent crimes against our Asian neighbors, relatives and friends have become horrifyingly prevalent in the daily headlines. Indeed, they have reached record levels. Our collegewide efforts to celebrate diversity, to practice civility, to be mindful of our language and be inclusive in our behavior should ensure that FIT is a safe haven for every member of our community. I hope that these efforts will prevail beyond the walls of FIT—and perhaps influence others as well—so that those in the Asian community are no longer targets of discrimination and violence and are treated with the dignity and respect that every person deserves. Dr. Joyce F. BrownPresidentFashion Institute of Technology       Click here to read the original article 

Two Computer Science students and Professor Youngmin Kwon in one team developed a data processing technology concerning training AI applications with image classification. This new technology is unlike the AI models in general which need completed decoded images for classification, and has been registered at the Korean Intellectual Property Office.       Saving time and memory space, this technology is even expected to save peoples’ lives if it assists the safety device as an auxiliary method.     Below is the team member Yousun’s written interview!         1. Please introduce yourself and your team members.     Hi. I am Yousun, a Ph.D. student in the CS department of the IoT lab. The two members of my team are my advisor, Prof. Youngmin Kwon, and another Ph.D. student, Jay, who graduated last Feb.       2. Could you explain briefly about this newly developed data processing that has been registered at the Korean Intellectual Property Office?     There is a study field of image classification in AI applications. The idea we developed is training an AI model with not fully decoded images. In general, pictures for AI training are completely decoded, but it is also likely to be trained as a deep learning model if we feed intermediate data taken from the decoding process.     The word ‘frequency’ is also used not just for radio waves, but pictures too. Image pixels are arranged in frequency ascending order while it’s in the encoding and decoding stage, and we take intermediate data from this stage.     Then the high-frequency parts are discarded because it is enough to train a model with the remaining parts if training targets are lumps of features. To do so, training data can be reduced up to one-fourth from the original size. It helps to save training time as well as memory space requirements.       3. How do you think this new technology will help people in general?     It requires fewer parameters of an AI model than using general pictures, therefore, the classification time is also fast with the same hardware. That small time gap is important to prevent the car accident of autonomous vehicles moving at high speed. If it assists the safety device as an auxiliary method, it will be helpful to save lots of lives.       4. Tell us about some difficulties or challenges your team faced while working together.     The first challenge was to design and implement an image decoder that can freely handle all sub-processes for decoding. We read lots of books about image processing and lecture notes.     Another difficulty was finding the best model for learning our outputs and repeated parameter tunings for each model. This is because it takes a long time to train the model, even if the input data has a small data size.       5. What did you learn from this experience?     One big lesson that I felt, and I would like to say to other students, is ‘You have to believe in what you think with confidence’. It would have never been invented if we ignored it as a trivial idea, and we would have given up without doing our best.    

SALI 360, a technology developed by CS Professor Jihoon Ryoo and two SUNY Korea students, Duin Baek and Hangil Kang, has recently been registered at the Korean Intellectual Property Office.     The technology was developed in 2019, out of the need that the currently available bandwidth in most of the developed countries can hardly support the bandwidth required to stream a large scale of contents like the 360°contents .     As an apparatus and method for encoding and decoding virtual reality image, SALI 360 improves perception quality while reducing the contents size to serve the streaming service on the current network platform.     By utilizing the characteristics of the human vision system (HVS), it solves the mismatch between the demand on higher quality of streaming services and the current network platform.     Related article: Click here  YouTube Video: Click here  

SUNY Korea Student Services Team and RA (Resident Assistant) Pop-Up Committee collaborated on SUNY Korea Appreciation Event & Thanksgiving in June.     * Appreciation Week The Appreciation Week Event started on May 31 and ended on June 2. This event was to bring together the SUNY Korea Community and share what we appreciate and are thankful for. The visitors (students, faculty and staff) filled out a sticky note and pasted it on a shared board. The people who completed a note received a small goodie bag as a gift of appreciation.     * Thanksgiving in June RA (Resident Assistant) Pop-Up Committee designed the event to provide students an opportunity to show respect and appreciation to their friends in the SUNY Korea community. SUNY Korea residents wrote thank you notes to their friends that they would like to appreciate. RAs sent the notes and a package to the recipient on behalf of the school.     The packages were issued on June 2nd under the Bill Hwang Library to promote social distancing. During campus lifetime, the RAs played requested music and displayed the colorful thank you notes on a huge poster while giving an opportunity to anyone who had not participated to write a thankful note and get a package.      Student Services Team and RA Pop-Up Committee made the events inclusive by encouraging all  people on-campus and off- campus were able to participate including students, faculty, and staff.

Dear Spring 2021 / Summer 2021 Graduation Candidates,     SUNY Korea congratulates our seniors for their achievements and upcoming graduation. We will come together to celebrate the commencement of the Class of Spring 2021 and confer the hard-earned degrees on Friday, June 18 at 15:00 p.m. KST.    This special tribute to the graduating class includes remarks from Dr. Wonki Min (President of SUNY Korea), Dr. Maurie McInnis (President of SBU), Dr. Joyce Brown (President of FIT), and Dr. Myung Oh (The Founder and Honorary President of SUNY Korea).        This year, SUNY Korea is holding the ceremony in person only for RSVP'd graduation candidates under strict COVID prevention measures. The ceremony will also be live-streamed via SUNY Korea's YouTube channel. RSVP'd students may accompany guests to the event, where guests will be able to watch the live-streamed ceremony in separate rooms.         You can access the Live-streaming on SUNY Korea’s official YouTube channel.  ※ Please subscribe to our channel to receive an alarm for the commencement.     ■ Date & Time: Friday, June 18 at 15:00 pm (KST)               ※ Click here to watch last year’s commencement

Members from the U.S. Embassy visited SUNY Korea on June 8th.   Anneliese Reinemeyer, Minister Counselor for Public Affairs, Anna Dupont, Director of Exchanges and Alumni and Maria Choi, Cultural Affairs Specialist, had a meeting with President Wonki Min.       During the meeting, the need for cooperation and networking between SUNY Korea, an American University, and the U.S. Embassy was brought up.   A campus tour was provided for the visitors afterwards.       As SUNY Korea offers the degrees and identical programs of two American universities (Stony Brook University and FIT), SUNY Korea will do our best to play the role of providing authentic higher American education in Songdo, South Korea.

It is an undeniable fact that the role of mechanical engineering is continuously growing in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution through new technologies such as AI.   To meet the needs of such a time, Hamid Hefazi, professor and chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department, contributed in publishing the second edition of the Springer Handbook of Mechanical Engineering as a chapter author and also an editor. This book “provide[s] a valuable guide for all who design, develop, manufacture, operate, and use mechanical artifacts,” and “senior students can use it as a resource for their senior design or other projects”. Students can borrow the copy of this book at the MEC Department!        Below is Professor Hefazi’s written interview:       [Interview Questions] 1  1) Please introduce yourself.  I am a professor and the Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department at the State University of New York (SUNY) – Korea. I received my PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Southern California (USC) in 1985. After working for the McDonnel Douglas Corporation in Long Beach, California for a while, I joined the California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) as a professor and department head, and worked there until 2013.       Prior to joining SUNY Korea I was the Head of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) department at California State University for 12 years and Florida Institute of Technology for 6 years. For more than 35 years, I have been teaching and conducting research on many mechanical and aerospace engineering topics for agencies such as NASA, the Boeing Company, Northrop Grumman Space Technology and the US Office of Naval Research among others. I served as the director of the “Boeing Technology Centre” at CSULB for 12 years.         I also have an interest in sailing and ship design and served as consultant for Prada 2000 and 2003 America's Cup Challenges in the areas of keel hull and sail performance for race boats. I also have worked extensively as a consultant for wind-energy companies on wind turbine design and have two US patents for Vertical Axis Wind Turbines.       2  2) Could you explain what Mechanical Engineering is to non-ME majors? Mechanical Engineering (ME) is the most popular engineering major in many industrially advanced countries such as Korea.  It is a foundational engineering discipline, which integrates core engineering sciences with other fields such as computer aided design (CAD), electronics and computer sciences, computer aided manufacturing (CAM), 3D printing, and experimentation, into a dynamic interdisciplinary field. Among various engineering disciplines, ME represents a good balance between theory and practical skills such as design, creativity experimentation, manufacturing skills, etc.       Looking ahead, the role of mechanical engineering is expected to substantially grow in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4RI), through new technologies such as robotics and automation, autonomous systems, sustainable energy, advanced transportation systems, smart materials, bio medical and space technologies, as well as demand for the manufacturing of new generation electronics and AI platforms, to name a few. All of these open new horizons for exciting careers in mechanical engineering.          3) Could you briefly explain what this book is about? This book is published by Springer Nature Switzerland AG, which is a publishing company headquartered in Cham, Switzerland. It is an essential resource for scientists and practicing engineers, as well as students during all phases of their studies.        The first edition of the Springer Handbook of Mechanical Engineering was published in 2008 and was very well received by the mechanical engineering community worldwide. As early as 2015, the publication of an updated second edition of the handbook was discussed with Springer, based on suggestions from authors and readers to include new developments in mechanical engineering. The publication took some time to complete but we are now very happy to present the second edition.         We have been privileged to work with approximately 100 authors from all around the world to gather selected and useful information about the discipline. A unique aspect of this handbook is that it contains a lot of practical information and data that are the result of the many years of experiences of the authors. A lot of this information is not available in any other sources.       4  4) What is your contribution to publishing this book?  I have two contributions to this book. First, I, along with Prof. Karl Heinrich Grote from the Otto-von-Guericke University in Magdeburg, Germany are editors of the book. While the chapter authors are primarily responsible for the contents of each chapter, the role of the editors is to establish goals, set the standards and coordinate the content. We also make sure the information presented is useful, accurate and in line with the overall objective of the book.          My second contribution to this book was as a chapter author. I wrote Chapter 24 of the book on Aerospace Engineering. Aerospace Engineering is a close subset of the mechanical engineering discipline. The information in this chapter is based on my years of experience and includes a lot of information that is not available in any other sources.       5  5) Do you recommend this book to SUNY Korea students and why? Yes. This handbook is a valuable guide for all who design, develop, manufacture, operate, and use mechanical artefacts. Senior students can use it as a resource for their senior design or other projects.  The mathematics, mechanics and material sections are excellent resources for senior level and graduate students. The handbook can also provide valuable insight into various areas of mechanical engineering to students of other majors, such as technology management students.  They can gain an overview of technical areas without necessarily needing to understand the technical details that are presented.        6 6) Please add whatever you wish to say about the book or Mechanical Engineering in general.  Working with a large group of recognized experts in different fields of ME was a very rewarding experience. The wide range of expertise of the contributing authors solidified my appreciation of the discipline and it’s many contributions to improve life and address societal challenges in the past and for the future.           Like many other disciplines, the field of ME has been highly impacted by advancements in computing as well as new electronics, remote sensing, advanced diagnostics and AI technologies. These advancements allow ME to address new and complex areas of societal needs at realistic scales, which were not previously possible. I strongly urge students with interest and passion for creativity, problem solving and leadership skills to consider ME as a career option.

SUNY Korea FIT is having a fashion show and exhibition at the Songdo Hyundai Premium Outlet this Saturday! Please visit and see all the amazing works of our FIT students!     Date: June 5th, Saturday (10:30 ~ 19:00) Event Schedule:  1) Natural Dye Fashion Show (2 times): 13:30, 15:30       * location: 1st Floor (Garden Terrace)       - Title: Nostalgia       - Designer: FIT Fashion Design, 12 Students from NDGC (Natural Dye Garden Club)       - Fabric is made from Hanji (eco- friendly) provided by Hanwon Moolsan Corp      - Coiffirst (French Hair Salon) at the Hyundai Premium Outlet will         show Nolstalgic hairstyle     2) Exhibition of students’ works      * location: 1st Floor Gate 2     3) Natural Dye Workshop: 14:00, 16:00   * location: 1st Floor Gate 2     4) MSC (Merchandising Society Club) & IVY (I visualize You) pop-up booth       - Introduction of Fashion goods and Magazine     SUNY Korea admissions/promotion booth will be set up during this event: 10:30~ 18:00  * location: 1st Floor Gate 2     Admissions/promotion booth will provide opportunities to receive gifts and participate in events once you add SUNY Korea on Kakaotalk.  Also, if you have your high school student ID card, a limited number of special packages will be provided on a first-come first-served basis.