At the Korea Science & Engineering Fair (KSEF), six of our students took home Silver and Bronze awards, proudly representing SSI.

KSEF is one of Korea’s most prestigious youth science competitions, requiring students to independently design experiments, write a research paper, and present their findings to the judges. This year, SSI produced six award recipients across a wide range of fields — each driven by genuine curiosity and months of dedicated work.

Hangyul Park earned the Silver Award — along with a Special Award from the American Psychological Association — for developing a web application designed to measure and improve happiness. Even when advisors questioned whether his topic was too subjective, he stayed the course—grounding his research in the psychology and neuroscience of emotion to establish its scientific credibility.

Seongtaek Hwang was inspired by articles on the health benefits of cold brew tea and set out to verify those claims himself, studying how brewing temperature affects the chemical composition of tea. His work ultimately became a lesson in patience—something he now credits as the key to his success.

Taeyoon Kang combined deep learning, LSTM, and OpenPose technologies to build an original app, dedicating roughly four hours a week over five months to the project. The biggest challenge She faced was handling a complex deep learning model, which he overcame through steady, self-directed study.

Gunwoo Ku joined the competition to write his first formal research paper on a topic he was passionate about. With a strong foundation of research, he took on the challenge of academic writing for the first time—and came away not only with an award, but with a renewed drive to push further.

Woojin Lim tackled the challenge of having no lab access by turning to AI tools like AlphaFold and ChimeraX to visualise protein structures. Showing up every day—no matter how small the effort—kept him motivated, and the results spoke for themselves.

Chanhyuk Lee investigated whether oral health apps could meaningfully change brushing behaviour in teenagers. In preparation for the competition, he anticipated and practiced over 100 potential questions from the judges—building the confidence to present his findings with clarity and composure.

All six students share a simple trait: they ask real questions and follow through. We’re proud of their work and look forward to what’s next.