Soon-Jo Chung

Soon-Jo Chung
Soon-Jo Chung
Adjunct Professor

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Biography

Prof. Soon-Jo Chung received the S.M. degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Sc.D. degree in Estimation and Control with a minor in Optics from MIT in 2002 and 2007, respectively. He received the B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering from KAIST in 1998 (school class rank 1/120). He is currently Associate Professor of Aerospace and Bren Scholar in the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT). For August 2009-August 2016, Prof. Chung was on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, first as an Assistant Professor and later as a tenured Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering. Prof. Chung was a Member of the Guidance & Control Analysis Group in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology as a JPL Summer Faculty Research Fellow and Faculty Affiliate working on distributed small satellites during the summers of 2010-2014. His research areas include nonlinear control and estimation theory and optimal/robust flight controls with application to aerial robotics, distributed spacecraft systems, and computer vision-based navigation. He is the recipient of the UIUC Engineering Dean's Award for Excellence in Research, the Beckman Faculty Fellowship of the U of Illinois Center for Advanced Study, the AFOSR Young Investigator Award, the NSF CAREER Award, and three best conference paper awards (2015 AIAA GNC, 2009 AIAA Infotech, 2008 IEEE EIT). He also received multiple teaching recognitions including the UIUC List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent and the instructor/advisor for the 1st place national winning team of the AIAA Undergraduate Team Space Design Competition. Prof. Chung is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics and has served on the program committees of multiple AIAA and IEEE conferences.

Academic Positions

  • Associate Professor of Aerospace and Bren Scholar, California Institute of Technology, August 2016-Present
  • Research Scientist, NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory, December 2016-Present
  • Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, August 2016-Present