August 2022 was highly productive and filled with good news in the world of CIEL friends. The news stories are summarized below to wrap up this remarkable month.
(1) Prof. JY Park's DIANA paper was finally accepted by the journal Science. The acceptance letter was issued just days after submission of the 2nd revision, without additional peer review that was widely anticipated. This pleasant surprise indicates that the editor was probably personally supportive and in favor of the paper, and trusted the authors based on progress made in the first round of revision. The long and tireless efforts by Prof. Park and his Vietnamese PhD student Phan Tan Toi, the first author, that made this a reality cannot be over-praised. They have overcome an enormous technical as well as political hurdles in producing data for this work, the latter coming from a jealous senior academic who had actively hindered progress and bad-mouthed the team. Now it is only matter of time that the exciting new discovery, that time-shuffled MRI can track neuronal activities in vivo, will make a big splash in the broad MRI and biology communities.
(2) Dr. Seulki Yoo, the first CIEL graduate student at SKKU, was granted a Korean government's new PhD research funding for the next 2 years. This was done even before she officially graduated, which technically happened on 8/25. This exciting early accomplishment will certainly go a long way to jump start her academic career, and makes her friends and mentors feel proud of her.
(3) Three CIEL students graduated from the graduate school of SKKU. Apart from Dr. Yoo mentioned above, Mr. Hyeong-Seop Kim and Mr. Byung-Pan Song got their Master's degree this month. Both of them have published multiple first-authored and co-authored papers during their time as graduate students in SKKU. They have positively impacted people around them through their friendly manners, positive attitudes, and their skills in hands-on electrical work in the lab.
