Jang Suk-bok, director of the Center for Catalytic Hydrocarbon Functionalizations at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) and a distinguished professor in the Department of Chemistry at KAIST, was appointed as the fourth president of IBS, effective the 4th. His term runs for five years from the date of appointment.
Born in 1962 in Yeongwol, Gangwon Province, the new president graduated from the Department of Chemistry at Korea University in 1985. He earned a master's degree in chemistry from KAIST in 1987 and a doctorate from Harvard University in the United States in 1996. He has published original and highly influential research achievements in the field of organic catalytic reactions, and was named among the world's top 1% of researchers (HCR, Highly Cited Researchers) for eight consecutive years (2015–2022). He currently serves as an editorial board member of The Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), among other roles.
In particular, Jang has led the Center for Catalytic Hydrocarbon Functionalizations since 2012, when the IBS research centers were first launched, sharing in the institution's history and development. He is the first IBS research center director to be appointed president.
