AYOUNG KIM, Korea 

Ayoung Kim (S’09-M’13) is the assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering with joint affiliation at KI robotics and School of Computing, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). She received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, in 2005 and 2007, respectively, and the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan (UM), Ann Arbor, in 2011 and 2012, respectively. She also worked as a post-doctoral researcher in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, UM in 2013 before works at Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) as a senior researcher. Her research interests include visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), navigation.

IEEE ACTIVITIES COMMITTEES/BOARDS:

Associate Editor (AE) IEEE RA-Letters Editorial Board (2019)

REGIONS:

10

SECTIONS/CHAPTERS:

DAEJEON / IEEE OE22 OES Korea Chapter

SOCIETY:

OES, ITS, RAS

CONFERENCES:

Reviewer of IROS, ICRA, and IV Publication Chair, IEEE Underwater Technology, 2017

QUALIFICATIONS

In my career path, I have participated in various fields of study, completing degrees in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering, pursuing research on marine robotics, and working as a faculty member in civil and environmental engineering. Having various perspectives and collaborating with other fields should be strongly encouraged, especially in robotics. My interdisciplinary background and experience could facilitate a diverse perspective for members.

New styles have evolved in education, such as flipped learning and active learning. I have been providing both teaching styles in my own lectures for four years, and I believe that this is the education needed to better educate the members at the early career path or members to learn a new topic. I am with a keen interest in the educational side of the RAS.

I have been a member of Women in Engineering (WIE) and Young Professionals (YP) for ten years. In the Korean domestic conference, I managed a session for women in engineering funded by Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology (WISET) as a female chair at the Institute of Control, Robotics, and Systems (ICROS) in 2017. No doubt that diversity is important for a society, and I contribute to serving more opportunity to a diverse member of society.

MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS

* Associate Editor (AE) IEEE RA-L (2019)

* Vice chair OES Korea chapter

* Organized and actively participated at flagship conferences and workshops Workshop on Acoustic based Navigation for Marine Robots, IROS 2017 Keynote at Workshop on Underwater Robotics Perception, ICRA 2019

* Young scientist at Annual Meeting of the New Champions, (Summer DAVOS) World Economic Forum (WEF) for two years (2016- 2017).

* As a female chair at Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems (ICROS), organized a special session for women in engineering funded by Center for Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology (WISET) funding.

POSITION STATEMENT

If elected to the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, I would like to focus on knowledge sharing and education in this era of artificial intelligence. As a member of Women in Engineering (WIE) and Young Professionals (YP), I am deeply interested in how we can train and mentor the new generation of robot scientists and engineers with a diverse background.

Based on my four years of experience in offering flipped-learning and active-learning lectures, I realize these are already the mainstream of learning in robotics. Hands-on experience solidly established upon a theoretical background has been a critical virtue in robotics. Society should further encourage task-oriented and self-motivated curiosity via committees. As we’ve seen in the recent flagship conferences, discussion and interaction have been favored, changing the style of conference presentations. Workshops are deepening

the interests of participants and are the best places to share ideas and knowledge within a specific community. Tutorials could be more beneficial and motivated. Competitions are a perfect platform through which to learn task-orientation and active problem-solving skills. I would like to raise awareness to add more value to tutorial organizers and encourage their active engagement.

With the flourishing of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics now faces a new question to answer. Coding and implementation barriers may have become lower, yet domain knowledge and exploitation are more strongly required than ever. How we embrace this powerful tool in each specific domain is the evolving needs; members are being asked to increase the insight to integrate this new skillset with their domain knowledge. My focus and interests are to support members with sharing diverse perspectives and transferring knowledge. As previously mentioned, the flagship conference’s workshop and tutorial could serve as a bridgehead to sharpen the need for versatility. More company engagement would be favored to pose challenging real-world problems and to have more opportunities in their career path for YP members.