Yong-Ill Lee

Biography

Yong-Ill Lee is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Department of Materials Confluence and System Engineering and a Director of Nano-Bio Research Center at Changwon National University (CWNU), Changwon, Korea. He has also served as a Adjunct Professor in Ton Duc Thang University, Viet Nam, and as a Honorable Professor in Tashkent Pharmaceutical Institute, Uzbekistan. He received his M.Sc. in Polymer Science in 1991 and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry in 1992 from the University of Massachusetts (UMASS), USA under the guidance of Prof. Joseph Sneddon. His dissertation was directed for the development of laser-induced breakdown spectrometry (LIBS) and its application for solid sample analysis. He received several awards including Outstanding Graduate Student Award and Professional Development Award during his stay in UMASS. After graduation, He was an assistant professor at Konyang University, Nonsan, Korea until 1997, when he joined the faculty of the Department of Chemistry at Changwon National University. He had been a Head of the Chemistry Department from 1998 to 2000 and served as the Directors of Research Institute of Basic Sciences and the Central Institute of Instrumental Facilities from 2003 to 2004 at CWNU. He had also been a Vice President of CWNU from 2007 to 2008.
He spent a year in Aston Laboratory in Purdue University under the direction of Prof. R.G. Cooks as a visiting professor in 2000. His work at Purdue was focused on the investigation of gas phase reaction in ion-trap mass spectrometry system. He also worked for Prof. Steven A. Soper in University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill on the instrumental development of Fluorescence Correlation Spectrometry system in 2005 and 2011 as a visiting professor. He has also been the Elected Director of the Korean Society for Analytical Sciences since 2007.
His research interests include analytical spectroscopy in general, laser spectroscopy (time- and space-resolved), more specifically the development and application of new plasma techniques for advanced materials of fluorescence spectrometry for biomolecules, gas-phase reaction and kinetic method for chiral analysis by mass spectrometry, photoluminescence of Lanthanide composite materials, micro- and nanostructures of materials. He is an author of over 270 scientific publications, 8 patents, two books on laser-induced breakdown spectrometry and 9 book chapters on laser-based analytical spectrometry. He received the 1999 Meritorious Service Award and the 2004 Outstanding Research Professor Award from CWNU, the 2003 Outstanding Scholar Award from the Korean Chemical Society (Analytical Chemistry Division), the 2007 Sunil Scientific Award from the Korean Society for Analytical Sciences, the 2009 A.A. Benedetti-Pichler Award from the American Microchemical Society. As a result of his efforts, he is performed several research projects as a Principal Investigator from the Korean government agency, Korea Research Foundation (KRF). Recently, His research group has been selected in BK21+ program for nano-bioscience research supported by Korean Ministry of Education. He is currently an editor for Asia of Applied Spectroscopy Reviews, editorial board member of the Microchemical Journal, Spectroscopy Letters and also an Advisory Board of Mass Spectrometry Letters.