Speaker
Description
Dr. Hyun Su Lee is the Associate Director of the Center for Underground Physics (IBS) in Korea, where he leads the dark matter search program. His career has been dedicated to advancing scintillation detectors for rare event searches.
This focus began with his Ph.D.(2000-2007) thesis at Seoul National University on the KIMS experiment, "Dark matter search with CsI(Tl) crystals". He made foundational contributions to developing low-background CsI(Tl) and was the first author on KIMS's initial dark matter search results.
After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago (2007-2011), Dr. Lee expanded his research to NaI(Tl) detectors. He now serves as the Spokesperson for the KIMS (2014-present) and NEON (2019-present) experiments, and as Co-spokesperson for the COSINE experiment (2015-present).
Dr. Lee led the COSINE-100 collaboration to its landmark Nature (2018) publication, which tested the DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation signal using the same NaI(Tl) target. His NEON experiment recently pioneered a novel encapsulation technique that increased NaI(Tl) light collection efficiency significantly. This breakthrough has enabled new light dark matter searches and is the foundation for the current COSINE-100U upgrade. He is also actively leading the R&D for low-background NaI(Tl) crystal growth, which is essential for the next-phase COSINE-200 experiment.