Professor Seung Jin Song from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Seoul National University (SNU) in the Republic of Korea, recently spent two weeks with our department in Stellenbosch. His visit took place at the invitation of our chairman, Professor Johan van der Spuy, with support from the faculty’s Vice Dean of Research.

While Professor Song’s research is primarily focused in turbomachinery, the purpose of his visit was to introduce him to the broader research fields in our department and identify possible areas of collaboration. He met with several of our master’s and doctoral researchers in the turbomachinery field, who presented their work to him. The discussions were often quite in-depth, and Prof. Song asked the students challenging questions that prompted them to reconsider their motivations and research objectives.

He also spent time visiting our laboratories and arranged meetings with staff members to discuss broader topics such as green hydrogen research, automation, biomedical engineering and the prevalence of data science among mechatronic engineering students. Professor Song concluded his visit with a lively presentation of his research field and his work at SNU.