Jeong H. Kim
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dr. Jeong H. Kim is a Korean-American electrical engineer and administrator who since 2005 has served as President of Bell Labs.
Jeong Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea. He came to the U.S. from Korea with his father and step-mother at the age of 14. He began school in Anne Arundel County, Maryland with no knowledge of English. At sixteen he left home and supported himself with odd jobs while he completed high school. He was accepted at Johns Hopkins University, where he completed his degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in three years while working for a start-up computer firm called Digitus [1] in which he eventually became a partner.
Kim then enlisted in the U.S. Navy, where he served as a nuclear submarine officer, for seven years. During this period he also obtained a Masters degree in Technical Management from Johns Hopkins. When he returned to civilian life, Kim worked for AlliedSignal at the Naval Research Laboratory, and again returned to school. After just two years of study he received his PhD in 1991 in Reliability Engineering, the first doctorate in that field awarded by the University of Maryland[2].
In 1992, Dr. Kim started his own firm, Yurie Systems, to promote his own ideas about streamlining electronic communications between different systems. There he led the development of an asynchronous transfer mode switch for wireless devices. The company was very successful, and in 1998 Lucent paid over one billion dollars to acquire it [1]. Kim stayed on with Lucent as a Division President until 2001, when he returned to the University of Maryland as Professor of Practice in Reliability Engineering, with a joint appointment in the departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Materials and Nuclear Engineering[3].
In 1998, The Korea Society honored Dr. Kim with its annual James A. Van Fleet Award for his contributions to closer U.S.—Korea relations.
In April 2005, Dr. Kim returned to Lucent to become President of their renowned Bell Labs component. He has been inducted into the National Academy of Engineering, and also into the Academy of Achievement in Washington, D.C. The University of Maryland gave him its Innovation Hall of Fame award, and furthered honored him with the construction and naming of the Jeong H. Kim Engineering and Applied Sciences Building[3]. In addition, Dr. Kim serves on the boards of many academic, corporate, and non-profit organizations, including the NASDAQ Listing and Hearing Review Council[4].
