Jaekang Kim receives Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

Stuttgart - Dr. Jaekang Kim has been working in Tribology field, which deals with any issues between contacting surfaces such as friction, wear, and lubrication. Especially, he has been focusing on understanding the physics of biomimetic dry adhesives for developing dry adhesives with higher performance and developing new manufacturing techniques for better marketability of dry adhesives. He obtained his doctoral degree in Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States in December 2020. On March 1st, 2021, he joined the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Stuttgart with the support of a two-year Humboldt Research Fellowship for postdoctoral researchers. 

"It is my great pleasure and honor to work with Professor Metin Sitti in his group with the support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. During my Ph.D., I read a lot of his papers related to the gecko-inspired dry adhesive and was attracted by his great achievement in this field, so I'm very excited to work with him, exploring the next generation of dry adhesives," says Jaekang. Prof. Sitti is leading the Physical Intelligence Department, which he founded in 2014 at the Stuttgart site of the MPI-IS. 

Each year, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation grants approximately 500 fellowships to postdoctoral researchers of all nationalities and disciplines from abroad. They must have above average qualifications, be at the beginning of their academic career and have only completed their doctorate in the past four years. A Humboldt Research Fellowship for postdoctoral researchers allows the awardee to carry out long-term research of six months to two years in Germany. Applicants choose their own topic of research and their academic host.

Find out more about the Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship here