Founded February 1, 1998
(042)-869-2241 FAX: 869-2245
Vol. 267, November 11, 2005
THE KAIST TIMES http://kaisttimes.com

Robert B. Laughlin

KAIST Times Publisher

Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Technology
373 Guseong-dong, Yuseong-gu
Daejeon 305-711, Republic of Korea

Tel: +82-42-869-2001
FAX: +82-42-869-4800
rbl@president.kaist.ac.kr

Professor Robert B. Laughlin has served as President of KAIST July 2004. He is formally responsible for all administrative aspects of the school, including curriculum, faculty and staff hiring, pay policy, student admissions, outreach and fund raising. He is also the chief architect of the current KAIST Vision, which places greater emphasis on market principles than was customary in the past. A key element of his plan - to aggressively advertize KAIST internationally through the internet - led him to order the KAIST Times to become electronic and bilingual (Korean and English), effective December 2005.

Professor Laughlin has many interests in addition to administration. He is a theoretical physicist, and has won numerous awards for his work, including the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics. He is a pianist and amateur composer. He enjoys biking and skiing, and has a cabin north of Yosemite in California, where he regularly hikes. He is also the author of a lay-accessible book, A Different Universe, now licensed for publication in 9 languages, including English and Korean, and is a regular columnist for the Chosun Ilbo. He has been married for 27 years and has two college-age sons. His wife Anita is in California at the moment teaching at Escondido School in Palo Alto.

Professor Laughlin is formally on leave from Stanford University, where he keeps his main web site. He plans to return to Stanford when his duties at KAIST are completed. At Stanford he holds a chair as Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and is a member of both the Physics and Applied Physics departments.

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