KWISE Southeaster Fall Conference was held on
November 8, 2014 (Saturday)
at the Hyatt Place Hotel, Duluth, GA.

The Southeastern Chapter of KWISE held its fall conference at the Hyatt Place hotel in Duluth, GA, on November 8th, 2014. After inauguration in 2011, we have continuously
provided an opportunity for networking, scientific presentations, and mentoring for members of the Southeastern KWiSE chapter. We also utilized this organization to share scientific research among KWiSE members and expand the networking. This time, the conference was focused on the Career Development for Academia and Government job. We had a plenary session of Dr. Seung soon Jang from GA Tech and Dr. Sohyun Park from CDC sharing their research and career development experience. For the research session, we had a research session with two outstanding trainees from the Emory University and the Georgia Tech. The first session was chaired by Dr. Jae-Kyung Lee (Emory University), president of the SE chapter. Dr. Seung soon Jang started the session with a presentation titled, “Computational Nano Bio Technology: the way to find treasure hidden in a field”. Dr. Jang is currently an Associate Professor in School of Materials Science and Engineering at GA Tech. Along with introducing his outstanding research programs, Dr. Jang also shared his own experience in Academic faculty career for those who are interested in their career path in Academic Institutes. Our next planetary speaker was Dr. Sohyun Park from
Center for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) talking about “Fellowship Opportunities at CDC”. Dr. Park is an epidemiologist at CDC who had trained one of the prominent fellowship program called EIS (Epidemic Intelligence Service) program at CDC. Along with the EIS fellowship information, Dr. Park introduced more than 20 different fellowship programs that CDC offers.

The second research session was chaired by Dr. Sungsil Moon (CDC). Dr. Shinjeong Lee from Emory University stared the session with a presentation titled, “Therapeutic neovascularization and long-term fate of purified endothelial cells derived from human pluripotent stem cells via a clinically compatible system”. Dr. Lee is currently a postdoc fellow at Emory University and shared her valuable research project with us. The next speaker was Dr. Shinae Kim from GA Tech talking about her thesis research titled, “Microfluidic device for high throughput target elective stimulation and long-term monitoring of in vivo cells”. Dr. Kim recently defended her Ph.D. thesis. Her study was very impressive to move up to the next career stage as a postdoc fellow position. The academic session was followed by the anther KWiSE session with the opening remarks by the chapter president, Dr. Jae-Kyung Lee from Emory University. The chapter president briefed the history and activities of the KWiSE SE chapter. The session concluded with the introduction of each member and the group photos. It is noticeable that the SE chapter adds new members every meeting with six new members joining the chapter in the fall conference. One of the features of the SE chapter is members from diverse fields of study or fields including not only basic science and engineering but also economics, epidemiology, digital media. We would like to continue and expand our networking.

Contributed by Dr. Jae Kung Lee (Emory University)

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