Junghwan Byun receives Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

Junghwan Byun has been working on the development of soft (micro)robotic systems that can interact electrically or mechanically with human, nature, and biological systems. He earned his Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Seoul National University, South Korea in 2017. After graduation, he joined the Soft Robotics Research Center at Seoul National University as a postdoctoral researcher, leading several projects on bioinspired soft robot mechanism design for 3 years. On September 1, 2020, he moved to the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Stuttgart working for the first 1 year with the support of the National Research Foundation of Korea. His two-year Humboldt Research Fellowship for postdoctoral researchers started on September 1, 2021.

“It’s a great honor for me to work in Prof. Metin Sitti’s group with the prestigious support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. I look forward to creating a great synergy to explore and build novel physically intelligent systems,” says Junghwan. Sitti heads the Physical Intelligence Department, which he founded in 2014 at the Stuttgart site of the MPI-IS.

Each year, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation grants approximately 500 fellowships to postdoctoral researchers of all nationalities and disciplines from abroad. They must have above average qualifications, be at the beginning of their academic career and have only completed their doctorate in the past four years. A Humboldt Research Fellowship for postdoctoral researchers allows the awardee to carry out long-term research of six months to two years in Germany. Applicants choose their own topic of research and their academic host.

Find out more about the Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship here