About
In Memoriam: Byoungho Lee, 1964 - 2022
Nov 07, 2022
Byoungho Lee, Optica Fellow and Professor of Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seoul National University, Korea, passed away on 7 November 2022. Byoungho’s research interests included optical fiber sensors, nano photonics, and 3D displays. Byoungho was awarded an Optica Fellow in 2005 for his contributions in information processing and nonlinear optics.
Byoungho was born in Seoul, Korea as the second of three brothers. After attending Daekwang high school, he studied at Seoul National University where he received his Barchelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering in 1987 and 1989, respectively. He then moved to University of California at Berkeley and completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1993.
In September 1994, Byoungho joined the faculty of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seoul National University. For the next 28 years, he conducted pioneering research on optical information processing, fiber sensors, digital holography, 3D displays, Meta-surfaces, and AR devices. His research work was highly recognized by international societies. He was awarded a fellow by SPIE in 2002, Optica in 2005, IEEE in 2014, and SID in 2020. He was the first Korean scientist who was awarded by four renowned academic societies (Optica, SPIE, IEEE, SID). Byoungho was the recipient of numerous awards including The 5th Presidential Young Scientist Award of Korea in 2002, The Scientist of the Month Award of Korea in 2009, The Grand Academic Research Award of Seoul National University in 2013, Outstanding Editor Award, Light: Science & Applications in 2014, Special Recognition Award (SID) in 2015, ‘Jin-Bo-Jang’ National Badge of Science of Korea in 2016 and Sudang Award in 2018. He was also awarded the HOLOKNIGHT, The Knight of Holography in 2014 for his distinguished contribution to the holography technology. He was elected as a senior member of The National Academy of Engineering of Korea in 2018.
Byoungho was very active in serving the societies. He served as a Director-at-Large of Optica from 2006 to 2008 and a member of the Strategic Planning Committee from 2009 to 2014. He was a co-organizer of the 1st Digital Holography and Three-dimensional Imaging conference (DH) of Optica in 2014. He had also been a chair of the steering committee for CLEO Pacific Rim since 2016. He served as a President of Optical Society of Korea (OSK) in 2019 and Korea Information Display Society (K-IDS) in 2021.
While Byoungho was a distinguished researcher, he also devoted himself to his students, colleagues, and family. He had advised and inspired more than 72 PhD and 33 Master students. He was very kind and warm to his family. Byoungho met his wife during his study at UC Berkeley and they were married in 1993. His two daughters, Jee Hyun and Jeewoo said “Our father put his love and devotion into helping us grow up well. When walking together, he held our hands. He was good at joking, and we always laughed because we liked his jokes. We have vivid memories that he took care of our outings and playing with us when we were kids even though he was very busy. He was family-oriented and discussed everything with our mother. As a professor, he emphasized the importance of education and research. He also emphasized honesty and responsibility in both family and social life. And he did it himself. We respect our father from the bottom of our hearts. We will always be grateful to be able to grow up in such a family.”
Byoungho Lee will be dearly missed by many within the scientific community. Optica mourns his loss.
Obituary provided by Byoungho Lee's students and colleagues.
