Tenure Application

Narrative Statement

My academic journey began in the faculty of law, where my freshman year fundamentally shaped how I understand the real-world systems that organize human behavior. Legal education taught me that law is not merely a collection of doctrines or statutes; it is a structured system of rules through which societies coordinate actions, allocate rights and responsibilities, and resolve conflicts. What fascinated me most was that legal systems quietly and implicitly design how people interact—who can act, under what conditions, and with what consequences. Yet the interactional effects of legal rules often remain abstract and difficult to observe directly. This realization made me curious about how such interaction structures could be made visible, testable, and redesignable.

Such curiosity led me to Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) and Human-Centered AI. HCI offered conceptual and methodological tools for studying how systems shape human behavior through interfaces, affordances, and constraints. It provided a way to examine interaction structures not only through theory but also through prototypes, experiments, and designed artifacts. As AI systems increasingly mediate decision-making, communication, and creativity, the questions that once interested me in the freshmen year, how rules shape interaction and coordination, began to appear in the research contexts as well. Human-Centered AI therefore became a natural extension of this inquiry: understanding how intelligent systems influence human behavior and how they should be designed to support meaningful, responsible interaction over the years.

This path ultimately led me to focus on the intersection of design, AI, and HCI working at the Design Department at UNIST, South Korea. Rather than approaching AI purely as a technical problem, I approach it from a designerly perspective. Design allows complex socio-technical questions to be explored through making, prototyping, and experiential inquiry as it provides ways to investigate not only what AI can do, but also how people experience, interpret, and interact with it in everyday contexts. Working at this intersection allows me to study AI not just as building better models to optimize algorithmic systems or algorithmic society, but as a cultural, creative, and interactional phenomenon.

Central to my research is the idea that AI should be researched and understood as an emerging tool, material, and medium for design for the future AI-driven society. As a tool, AI augments creative and cognitive processes, supporting designers in ideation, generation, and exploration. As a material, it introduces new properties—such as generativity, unpredictability, and probabilistic behavior—that designers must learn to shape and work with. As a medium, AI reshapes how people communicate, produce knowledge, and interact with digital systems. My research trajectory, viewing AI in these three ways, allows design research to move beyond simple tool-building toward deeper exploration of how AI transforms Human-AI co-creation and responsible Human-AI creative practice.

What distinguishes my research is its integration of technology (AI), designerly, or a critical inquiry, and human-centered AI exploration through a research-through-design approach. Rather than studying AI from a technological perspective, I generate knowledge by designing, prototyping, and reflecting on artifacts and interaction systems. This approach allows research outcomes to take multiple forms, academic publications, prototypes, demos, exhibitions, performances, and public engagements, through which ideas can create tangible real-world impact. Through these practices, I investigate and demonstrate how AI can be used not only as a technology but as a new tool, material, and medium for design. By bridging analytical perspectives I learned from law, methodological rigor from HCI, and experimental practices from design, my work expands how we understand, experience, and shape the evolving relationships between humans and intelligent systems in a more responsible, liberal, and expressive manner.

Education has also been a central commitment throughout my career. I received my PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC) with the support of a Fulbright Scholarship. During my doctoral training, I did my best to build a strong technical foundation by taking 15 AI and ML(Machine Learning) courses across the campus (which are all of the AI classes offered in UIUC). After graduating in 2019, I dedicated myself to initiating design-oriented AI education in South Korea based on my hard-earned foundations in AI/ML. I developed curricula that integrate AI with design practice, focusing on the designerly application of AI and openly shared my syllabi, slide decks, and studio methods to help build a broader educational foundation in south Korea. I also organized public seminars, research talks, and participated in design studio critiques to advocate for ethical, responsible, and designerly uses of AI across the Asia-Pacific regions. Through these efforts, I sought to help establish a critical mass of educators and students who understand AI not only as a technical system but as a design medium that shapes human interaction. In recognition of these sustained contributions, I received the Ministerial Commendation for Meritorious Service from the Minister in 2025, an honor awarded to only about 0.1% of faculty members, acknowledging six years of dedicated work in advancing design-oriented AI education after my graduation.

With years of interdisciplinary research, sustained educational leadership, and internationally recognized contributions, I have built a strong foundation in design-oriented AI scholarship. I believe my continued efforts to advance research, education, and public engagement reflect my commitment to excellence and impact, forming the basis for my application for tenure.