Job Type
Teaching/Education
Research
Data Management
Sea regions of study
Arctic Ocean
Japan Sea
North Pacific Ocean
Comment(s)
He is a tenured professor in the Department of Oceanography at Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea. He serves as Chair of the Korean Argo Program and directs the Korea Autonomous Ocean observing System (KAOS), which provides glider observations for governmental agencies and the Korean Navy. He began working with Argo floats in 2000 and started operating ocean gliders at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI, USA) in 2009. Since returning to Korea in 2012, he has led the development and operation of national ocean glider programs and autonomous ocean observing systems. His team currently operates 15 Slocum gliders including three gliders dedicated to sustained observations in the East/Japan Sea. As of May 2026, the program has accumulated over 3,000 glider-days and ~77,000 km of autonomous observations. The team has also demonstrated long-duration virtual mooring operations using gliders in both the East/Japan Sea and the Pacific Ocean, including observations during typhoon passages. His research focuses on mesoscale-submesoscale ocean dynamics as well as near-inertial internal waves, with particular emphasis on the role of small-scale processes in large-scale ocean variability. He is also interested in integrating autonomous ocean observations into operational oceanography through AI-based ocean state estimation and forecasting systems. He leads the development of OceanCast4D(https://oceancast4d.kr), an AI-driven ocean state reconstruction and short-term forecasting system and is developing autonomous surface vehicles to complement existing Argo and glider observing networks.
