Tae-Hyuk Kwon Email & Phone Number

Group Website: kwon.kaist.ac.krTae-Hyuk Kwon currently works as an associate professor in Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea. He received his BSc (2002) followed by an MS (2004) and PhD (2008) at KAIST. During his PhD, he spent one year working as a visiting scholar at Georgia Tech (2005). From 2009 to 2011 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Earth Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). From 2011 to 2013, he worked as a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Washington State University, Pullman, WA, U.S.A. Since 2013, he is leading a research group at KAIST, first as an assistant professor (2013–2018) and now as an associate professor since 2018. He leads the Geo-Energy LAboratory (GELA).Tae-Hyuk’s research mainly focuses on three themes: energy geotechnology, bio-geotechnics, and natural geohazards. Research on “energy geotechnology” aims to advance our understanding on emergent subsurface processes and bring solutions to environment- and energy-related problems, which includes but are not limited to geologic carbon storage, natural gas hydrates, microbial enhanced oil recovery, geologic disposal of high-level nuclear wastes, hydraulic fracturing, and CO2 reuse in construction materials. The theme “bio-geotechnics” aims to understand geo-bio-chemo-thermo-hydro-mechanically coupled processes in subsurface and develop nature-inspired sustainable geotechnical design and ground improvement techniques. Exemplary research includes biological soil modification with biopolymers, bio-minerals, bio-gases (MIBF, EIBF, MICP, EICP) and root-inspired anchors and foundations. Lastly, his research aims to bring solutions for resilient urban built environments against natural geohazards, in specific, prediction of landslides and debris flows, landslide early warning system, and debris flow mitigation measures. His technological strength is on multi-scale experimentation and modeling. At a small length scale, he has a research program examining the bio-chemical processes in porous media at the pore- to core-scale using microfluidic chips and X-ray computed microtomography. At a bigger length scale, he also leads the projects related to remote sensing using drone-LiDAR system and satellite-SAR analysis for landslide analysis and detection, and underground tunneling using TBM.