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Professor Sangmin Lee, from the School of Global Communication, stands as one of the distinguished recipients of the 2023 Kyung Hee Fellow in Research

Professor Sangmin Lee from the School of Global Communication has made remarkable strides in her field, excelling in research, publication, and securing external projects, positioning her as one of the nation’s top performers. Her active involvement in academia extends to serving as a committee member for the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) and a policy advisor for the Ministry of Education, fostering vibrant exchanges within the academic community.

Professor Lee’s primary research focus is on education technology, commonly referred to as EduTech, which saw significant growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Various EduTech initiatives were attempted and expanded during the pandemic period. Advancements in science and technology also have catalyzed diverse transformations in EduTech. Professor Lee has been a pioneer in integrating engineering technologies such as the metaverse and artificial intelligence into her research endeavors. Despite her background in humanities, she has obtained NRF’s Interdisciplinary Research projects.

To effectively execute interdisciplinary projects, Professor Lee emphasizes the importance of networking and collaboration across diverse fields. She is on the constant lookout for professionals at meetings and conferences, underscoring the need for consistent networking to understand the required technologies and identify experts in those fields. She stressed, “Consistent networking is essential to understand what technologies are required for the research at hand and who specializes in those technologies.”

Her innovative approach extends beyond research to education, where she garnered acclaim for integrating EduTech into lectures at the School of Global Communication and for pioneering the Metaverse Specialist track at the Graduate School of Media and Communication. In undergraduate courses, she utilized virtual reality to vividly portray Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, offering students an immersive learning experience. Experiencing the novel’s settings firsthand before reading it provided an experiential learning content. The Metaverse Specialist track encourages students to design and implement metaverse educational content, fostering a fusion approach to learning. Professor Lee remarked, “Even though they are humanities courses, students from engineering disciplines are taking them, and classes are conducted in a blended format.”

Drawing from her experience as a committee member at the NRF and as a policy advisor for the Ministry of Education, Professor Lee provided insights into the latest policy trends. She stated: “There’s an emphasis on integrating artificial intelligence. By early 2025, AI digital textbooks will be introduced in elementary, middle, and high schools. The incorporation of AI into learning suggests an expansion of data-driven empirical research. Preparing research that integrates big data and public data will be beneficial for convergence projects.”

Looking ahead, Professor Lee aims to cultivate junior professors through her interdisciplinary research team. She elaborated, “At present, interdisciplinary research within the humanities and social sciences hasn’t assumed a central role nor made significant international impact. Nevertheless, the upcoming generation of scholars harbors substantial potential to emerge as distinguished figures on the global academic stage. My intention is to aid in fostering internationally renowned professionals.”