Professor Jeehyun Kwag Becomes First Korean to Win HFSP Young Investigators’ Grant

▲ Professor Jeehyun Kwag, Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering

 The international organization Human Frontiers Science Program (HFSP) announced that Professor Jeehyun Kwag (age 34) of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering won the 2015 Young Investigators’ Grant.

 Professor Kwag is the first Korean to receive the HFSP Young Investigators’ Grant. The winning study is joint research with Michael Kohl of the University of Oxford and Blake Richards from the University of Toronto Scarborough on the topic of “an integrated multi-level investigation of neural codes in sensory processing.” The three-year grant will be awarded to all three professors.

 HFSP was established to promote basic research in the field of life sciences under the lead of the G7 nations in 1989. Fifteen countries including South Korea are currently contributing financial aid for research to support scientists with outstanding research capabilities in the field of brain and cognitive engineering and life sciences annually. The contributions fund programs such as young investigators and research program grants and long-term fellowships. Among the HFSP grant winners, twenty-five became Noble laureates, including the two chemists who won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This is why HFSP has been dubbed the “Fund for the Nobel Prize.”