Nam Chang-hee


Nam Chang-hee is a South Korean plasma physicist. Nam is specializing in the exploration of relativistic laser-matter interactions using femtosecond PW lasers. Currently he is professor of physics at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology and director of the Center for Relativistic Laser Science as a part of the Institute for Basic Science.

Biography

Nam studied nuclear engineering at Seoul National University, where he obtained his B.Sc. in 1977. After that he received a M.Sc. in physics from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in 1979. Entering the classroom as an instructor, he taught as in Pusan National University until 1982. Enrolling in Princeton University, he moved to the United States where he later received a Ph.D. in plasma physics in 1988. He stayed in Princeton for a year working as a staff research physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
In 1989, he began working as an assistant professor in the Department of Physics in KAIST, where he was promoted to associate professor in 1992 and full professor in 1998. From 1999, he was also director of the Coherent X-ray Research Center at KAIST where he researched ultrafast laser science. He left KAIST in 2012 to become a professor at the Department of Physics and Photon Science at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology and the founding director of the Center for Relativistic Laser Science, a research center at GIST with funding provided by the Institute for Basic Science.

Academic work

Nam has published more than 120 journal papers and gives invited talks in international conferences. He served as a steering committee member of OECD Global Science Forum on Compact High-Intensity Short-Pulse Lasers that eventually became ICUIL - a working group of IUPAP, and is a scientific advisory committee member of ELI - ALPS – the EU program for the PW laser facility in Hungary started from 2011.
He has served as conference chairs, organizing chairs or program chairs. He is on the editorial boards of J. Phys. B as an international advisory committee member since 2007 and as a guest editor in 2012; IEEE Photonics Journal as an associate editor. He has represented Korea in international committees. He has been instrumental in launching the Asian Intense Laser Network in 2004, serving as the first secretary

Awards