Phillip Kim (55), professor of physics at Harvard University, recently received the ‘Benjamin Franklin Medal’, which is called the American Nobel Prize. The Korea Academy of Science and Technology announced on the 22nd, “Professor Kim received this year’s Physics Medal for his pioneering discovery of ‘graphene,’ a new material composed of one atom thick,” and “a first for a Korean researcher.”
The Benjamin Franklin Medal is an award given to researchers since 1824 by the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, USA. As the oldest science and engineering award in the United States, world-renowned researchers such as Thomas Edison, Marie Curie, Stephen Hawking, and Bill Gates have been selected as recipients in the past.
The Benjamin Franklin Medal winner is also evaluated as a researcher who has achieved achievements approaching the Nobel Prize. 122 of the recipients of the Benjamin Franklin Medal have also received a Nobel Prize. An official from the National Academy of Science and Technology said, “Professor Kim published a paper in Nature in 2005 that first identified the physical properties of graphene, drawing attention from the world’s physics community and is now considered a Korean scientist closest to the Nobel Prize.”
The award ceremony, which celebrated its 199th anniversary this year, was held in Philadelphia on the 27th of last month (local time), and nine researchers, including Professor Kim, from chemistry, computer and cognitive sciences, earth and environmental sciences, electrical engineering, life sciences, and mechanical engineering, etc. has won an award The Franklin Institute awarded the winner a prize of 10,000 dollars (approximately 13.18 million won) and a gold medal.
Professor Kim, a regular member of the Academy of Science and Technology, received a master’s degree in physics from Seoul National University in 1992 and a doctorate in applied physics from Harvard University in 1999. Even after the Benjamin Franklin Medal award was confirmed, Professor Kim did not want to inform the researchers or academics around him, so the news was delivered to the domestic scientific community a little late.
Source: Donga
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