2009 OYRA Recipient, Dr. Kyoungchul Kong

The OYRA committee chaired by Prof. Yong Wook Kim selected Dr. Kyoungchul Kong at the Fermi National Lab as the recipient of 2009 OYRA (Outstanding Young Researcher Award). Dr. Kong got his B.S. degree (1997) and M.S. degree from Pusan National University, and he obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of Florida at Gainesville. He is a theoretical particle physicist, doing research on WIMP dark matter. WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) is one of candidates for illusive dark matter. He will analyze results of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN to find properties of candidate particles for dark matter.

He was highly recommended by several scientists, and one of them wrote, "He is a remarkably talented particle theorist, among the very best that I have encountered in 20 years at Fermi Lab."

In addition to Dr. Kong, three researchers were nominated for OYRA this year. Two other nominees are particle physicists also, and the other is doing molecular physics.
All of them are outstanding young physicists. It is very nice to find that young Korean physicists are doing fine jobs.

The award will be presented at the annual AKPA meeting on March 18, 2009 at Pittsburgh.

The Award committee members are Prof. Yong Wook Kim (Chair, Lehigh Unv.), Prof. Jiyeong Gu (California State Univ. at Long Beach), Prof. Howard Lee (Georgia Tech), Prof. Eun-suk Seo (Univ. of Md.), and Dr. Hoydoo You (Argone National Lab). Their hard work for selecting the excellent recipient is appreciated.