AMORE PACIFIC Award for Outstanding Women in the Sciences Awardee Professor Kim Eun-kyung "I liked science since I was young, and became a scientist. Though there were ups and downs, but I am living a happy life thanks to the fact that I'm a scientist. Whenever I meet people in the same field, I still say 'we are so happy'". Professor Kim Eun-jung was awarded the 4th AMORE PACIFIC Award for Outstanding Women in the Sciences on October 28. The award was established by Amore Pacific and Korea Federation of Women's Science and Technology Association to publicize and promote achievements and researches by female scientists. The awardee of the first prize receives thirty million Won as a prize money. Professor Kim was also awarded the first "Woman Scientist of the Year" in 2001. She graduated from Yonsei in 1982 and received her M.A. from Seoul National University, and Ph.D from the University of Houston. She had been a researcher at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology, and became a professor at Yonsei in 2004. To Professor Kim, being a scientist is her life's calling. "I opened my old school journal recently," she said, "where I found that my dream during my middle-school years was becoming a scientist." "My parents and my high-school chemistry teacher also encouraged me, so I naturally became a scientist." During the interview, she emphasized she is happy being a scientist. She said she sometimes thinks, "Do I have to do only this all my life?" but gets excited whenever she gets a good result from experiments. "I do not take hardships too seriously," she says, "for I work with the belief that if I make a progress, other researchers wouldn't face the difficulties I encountered." Professor Kim's field of research is conducting polymer. It is a field that studies substances made of conducting polymer, and properties of substances that changes their qualities under electricity flow. "Scientist who created this substance received Nobel Prize," she continued, "and rigorous researches are under way to apply it to display devices or solar cell, though it is not used widely." Conducting polymer is an organic matter, so it weighs light and it is easy to create various forms or to control thickness. It is also more friendly to environment for it does not need heavy metal. "We do many researches on changing color and fluorescence to the degree of electricity level," Professor Kim says, "and it will be possible to make electronic paper and books which display a variety of colors when the technology is more advanced." She mentioned the wearable solar cell as an interesting application of the technology. With the technology, one would be possible to recharge mobile devices by wearing cells in one's clothes. Professor Kim published more than a hundred papers in international journals and has about 120 patents so far. She is also serving as the head of Nano-Bio Technology Research Cluster to develop technologies with 11 corporations from 2006. Recently, she is expanding her field of research to bio technology by researching subjects such as controlling the growth of stem cell on conducting polymer material. Courtesy of Donga Ilbo, article originally written by Kim Sang Yeon