Buhm Soon Park

Buhm Soon Park is a KAIST Endowed Chair Professor at the Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy and serves as Director of the Center for Anthropocene Studies. His primary interest lies in the historical study of scientific concepts, disciplines, institutes, and policies from a global and comparative perspective. He has published books and articles on the history of quantum chemistry, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Korea’s Institute for Basic Science (IBS). His current research focuses on the Great Acceleration in the Anthropocene, examining its regional and temporal unevenness as well as its common and overarching trends. He also explores the governance of synthetic biology and the futures of biotechnology, while pursuing the fundamental question of trust in science across various cultural contexts.

Park earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Seoul National University and received his PhD in the history of science from Johns Hopkins University in 1999. He subsequently worked at the NIH as a postdoctoral fellow for several years before joining KAIST in 2007. He spent a year at the Science, Technology, and Society (STS) Program of the Harvard Kennedy School as a senior visiting research fellow. His service in professional societies includes: President of Association for East Asian Environmental History, President of the Korean Association of Science and Technology Studies, Vice President of the Korean History of Science Society, and Editor of Korean Journal for the History of Science. He currently serves as Associate Editor for Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences.

Park holds joint appointments in two academic programs at KAIST as an adjunct professor: the School of Transdisciplinary Studies and the Graduate School of Engineering Biology. He also serves as Chair of the Subcommittee for Social, Human and Natural Sciences at the Korean National Commission for UNESCO. He is an elected member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology, where he serves as Director of Policy Research Institute. He is a member of the Anthropocene Working Group.

박범순은 여러 학문 분야 사이에서 새로운 과학 지식과 기술이 등장하고 사회에서 수용되는 과정과 정책을 연구하는 과학사학자이다.  카이스트 과학기술정책대학원 석좌교수이며 인류세연구센터의 센터장을 맡고 있다. 한국과학기술한림원 정회원으로 현재 정책연구소장이다. 주요 관심 연구 분야는 인류세의 대가속, 첨단바이오와 사회, 과학의 신뢰성 등이며, 인류세 개념을 활용하여 인문학, 과학, 예술, 교육의 접점을 모색하고 있다.