Misc.

Citizenship: South Korea United States

I was originally born in South Korea. Some people get confused after reading my C.V. because I have almost nothing related to South Korea in it. I moved to China when I was ten and grew up there. That is why I speak both Korean and Chinese in my mother tongue. If you don’t believe it, try talking to me in Chinese 🙂 Later, I acquired the U.S. citizenship because my wife and I decided to live in this country!


Master’s degree: None 🙁

In Computer Science, it is common that one pursues the doctor’s degree directly after earning his/her bachelor’s degree. I was one of such people, and that is why I do not have a master’s degree.


What is ‘Computer Science Research’:

Surprisingly, I have been doing ‘Research’ for several years in my graduate school without being able to clearly define/explain what is research. An article I saw online shed a light to me [link]. It is hardly an ultimate answer to the question “What is the definition of computer science research?”, but it is very thought-provoking.

Long article shortened, there are only four types of things that can be stated as ‘research objectives’ in engineering research: (below is a direct quote from the article)

  1. “The research objective of this proposal is to test the hypothesis H.”
  2. “The research objective of this proposal is to measure parameter P with accuracy A.”
  3. “The research objective of this proposal is to prove the conjecture C.”
  4. “The research objective of this proposal is to apply method M from disciplinary area D to solve
    problem P in disciplinary area E. This research integrates knowledge from one disciplinary
    area into another. To do this often involves the resolution of inconsistencies across the
    disciplines.”

How to write a technical article

Daniel Ritchie at Brown University wrote an article about research article writing. I agree with most if not all. I suggest all Ph.D. students should read this article [link].