Since he received his Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1985, Dr. Hefazi has been involved in a broad range of teaching, research, and academic administration activities.
His more recent research works have been on the application of CFD in turbomachinery, aerodynamic design optimization, aeroacoustics, hydrodynamics, ship design, and advanced multidisciplinary design and optimization (MDO) methods. Dr. Hefazi has been the principal investigator for more than one-hundred externally funded research projects including projects sponsored by the US Office of Naval Research, NASA, US National Science Foundation, and the Boeing Company among others. Prior to joining SUNY Korea, he served as the head of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Departments at California State University and Florida Tech for a combined 19 years.
Dr. Hefazi has also served as the director of several organizations and research labs including the Boeing Company's Technology Centre at California State University. He has received many awards including The US Department of Defense’s Nunn-Perry Award for 2005 and 2006 and the Boeing Company's Silver Eagle Award for innovation in 2006. He is a member of the US National Academy of Inventors and an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
Hamid Hefazi has already contributed much in many areas of SUNY Korea operations during his short tenure at SUNY Korea: personnel and policy committee, faculty senate, grievance policy, faculty evaluation criteria and guidelines, etc. As the chief academic officer overseeing the curricular and faculty matters, he has much to contribute to the university.
Professor Linda Kim in the Fashion Business Management Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) at SUNY Korea participated as an exhibiting artist at the 2026 International Fashion Art Biennale, held from September 21 to October 31, 2026, at Youngwol Y Park in Gangwon Province, South Korea. Organized by the Korea Fashion & Culture Association, the ninth biennale brought together 74 artists from 10 countries under the theme “Sculpturing Space: Fashion.&rdqu
Professors Francois Rameau and Zhoulai Fu of the Department of Computer Science at SUNY Korea have been selected to participate in strategic R&D planning initiatives focused on next-generation robotics and energy-efficient AI. Through collaboration with leading Korean research institutes, the initiatives provide opportunities to develop their research concepts and establish pathways toward future national and international R&D projects. SUNY Korea has launched two strategic R&
Professor Yoon Seok Yang of the Department of Computer Science at SUNY Korea is participating in a KRW 4.5 billion government-funded R&D project to develop an AI-powered wearable system for personalized epilepsy seizure detection, classification, and prediction. Running from July 2026 through December 2030, the project has allocated KRW 500 million to SUNY Korea. Led by Oceansbio, the multidisciplinary consortium includes Samsung Medical Center, the Korea Electronics Technology Instit
Professor Mario Rüttgers of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at SUNY Korea has contributed as a co-author to a new study published in Nature. The work introduces HydroGym, a computational platform that brings together reinforcement learning and computational fluid dynamics to develop intelligent strategies for controlling fluid flows. One of the study’s key findings is that reinforcement-learning agents can learn flow-control strategies in one computational environment
Professor Younggeun Lee in the Department of Business Management at SUNY Korea has been selected as the recipient of the 2026 Emerging Scholar Award by the Management History Division of the Academy of Management (AOM). The Academy of Management is the premier global professional association for management and organization scholars worldwide. Its Emerging Scholar Award is a highly competitive honor bestowed upon early-career scholars who have demonstrated exceptional research excellence,