Oum Sang-il (; born 1976) is a Korean mathematician working in

graph theory In mathematics, graph theory is the study of ''graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of '' vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are conn ...

and discrete mathematics. He is a tenured professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at

KAIST The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is a national research university located in Daedeok Innopolis, Daejeon, South Korea. KAIST was established by the Korean government in 1971 as the nation's first public, resear ...

and the chief investigator of the Discrete Mathematics Group in the Pioneer Research Center for Mathematical and Computational Sciences at the

Institute for Basic Science The Institute for Basic Science (IBS; ) is a Korean government-funded research institute that conducts basic science research and relevant pure basic research. IBS was established in November 2011 by the Lee Myung-bak administration as a res ...

. He is known for his work on structural graph theory and in particular for structures and algorithms relating to rank-width,

clique-width In graph theory, the clique-width of a graph is a parameter that describes the structural complexity of the graph; it is closely related to treewidth, but unlike treewidth it can be bounded even for dense graphs. It is defined as the minimum num ...

, and branch-width. He published more than 45 journal papers. He won the Young Scientist Award from the South Korean government in 2012. and the TJ Park Young Professor Fellowship from the POSCO TJ Park Foundation in 2009. He has been an editor of the ''Journal of the Korean Mathematical Society'' since 2011 and a founding member of Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology. He wrote a monthly pieces for the monthly magazine "Math Donga" (ko) for 4 years from 2016, sharing the latest research breakthroughs in mathematics. In the Korean Mathematical Society (ko), he was appointed twice (2011-2012, 2017-2018) as an executive member of the board of trustees in charge of the Korean Mathematical Olympiad. He was a member of the Korean Mathematical Olympiad Committee for 2011-2018 and was the deputy leader of the South Korean team at the

International Mathematical Olympiad The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. It has since been held annually, except i ...

in 2012 and 2018.

Education

Born in

Yecheon County Yecheon County is a county in the province of North Gyeongsang, South Korea. It is 661 km2 in area, and in 2004 had a population of 52,311. It has lost over 2/3 of its inhabitants since the mid-1960s. It consists of twelve administrative d ...

, Oum attended

Daegu Science High School Daegu Science High School is a gifted school located in Daegu, South Korea. The school opened on October 26, 1987. As of 2020, it has 281 students. The school is for gifted students with talents in mathematics and sciences. The graduates of th ...

in Daegu from 1992. He then went to

where he majored in mathematics and graduated with a B.S. in 1998. Studying in the Program of Applied and Computational Mathematics of

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, he majored in graph theory and discrete mathematics. His dissertation was overseen by Professor Paul Seymour and Ph.D. was awarded in 2005.

Career

From 1999 to 2002, Oum worked as a computer programmer in Korea. He was a visiting assistant professor in the School of Mathematics,

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

for 2005-2006 and a postdoctoral fellow under Jim Geelen in the Department of Combinatorics & Optimization in the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to "Uptown" Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also operates ...

in 2007. In 2008, he joined the Department of Mathematical Sciences

as an assistant professor before coming an associate professor and then full professor in 2011 and 2016, respectively. He was an affiliate professor in the School of Mathematics,

Korea Institute for Advanced Study The Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS) is an advanced research institute in South Korea. It is located on a campus in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul. KIAS was founded in 1996, aiming to become a world leading research institute where internati ...

for several years. In 2018, he was appointed as the CI (Chief Investigator) of the Discrete Mathematics Group in the Pioneer Research Center for Mathematical and Computational Sciences at the

(IBS). This and the Pioneer Research Center for Biomolecular and Cellular Structure are the first of two such centers at IBS.

Awards and honors

*2022: Choi Seok-jeong Award *2017: Founding member of Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology *2012: Young Scientist Award, President of Korea *2011: Excellent Young Researcher Research Award, National Research Foundation of Korea *2010: Excellent Research Paper Award, Korean Mathematical Society *2009: TJ Park Junior Faculty Fellowship, POSCO TJ Park Foundation

References

External links

Sang-il Oum's home pageIBS Discrete Mathematics GroupOum Sang-il - Google Scholar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oum, Sang-il KAIST faculty 1976 births Living people 21st-century South Korean mathematicians Graph theorists KAIST alumni Princeton University alumni Institute for Basic Science People from Yecheon County 20th-century South Korean mathematicians South Korean scientists