Kwangtaek Kim, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Director of Immersive Computing for Touch Lab in the Department of Computer Science at Kent State University
Dr. Kwangtaek Kim received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electronics Engineering from Korea University in 1998 and 2001, respectively and his Ph.D. degree in haptics from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University in 2010. Currently, he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Kent State University. He has been an affiliate visiting professor in Laboratoire Images, Signaux et Systèmes Intelligents (LISSI) at the University of Paris-Est Creteil (UPEC), Paris, France since 2017.
Prior to joining Kent State, Dr. Kim was an Associate Professor at Incheon National University, Incheon, South Korea. He was a researcher in the group of Human Computer Interface at Microsoft Research Asia and a chief research engineer who has led the Telepresence Team at LG Advanced Research Institute. He was also a postdoctoral research associate at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center.
Dr. Kim received several awards including the Distinguished Teaching Award from Incheon National University, the Spot Award from Microsoft Research, and the Outstanding Research Engineer Award from LG Electronics. His research is focused on developing new interactive touch feedback technologies based on haptics (a study field of the sense of touch) and human visual and touch perceptions to improve impaired sensory-motor functions of Parkinson patients through customizable touch feedback for a virtual reach and touch task, help nursing/medical students practice hand motor-related medical procedures in a realistic virtual clinic environment, or improve typing productivity with realistic keyclick feedback in mobile/virtual reality environments. Dr. Kim received multiple grant awards as the PI from NSF or NRF in Korea. He has led multiple projects in industry and academia and is also the inventor of 11 patents.