mathematics

Oum Sang-il

Oum Sang-il is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Oum Sang-il rather than just read about it. In short: Oum Sang-il (Korean: 엄상일; born 1976) is a South Korean mathematician working in graph theory and discrete mathematics. He is a distinguished research fellow and the chief investigator of the Discrete Mathematics Group in the Pioneer Research Center for Mathematical and Computational Sciences at the Institute for Basic Science.

Key takeaways

Oum Sang-il belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Oum Sang-il to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Oum Sang-il from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Oum Sang-il (Korean: 엄상일; born 1976) is a South Korean mathematician working in graph theory and discrete mathematics. He is a distinguished research fellow and the chief investigator of the Discrete Mathematics Group in the Pioneer Research Center for Mathematical and Computational Sciences at the Institute for Basic Science. He was a tenured professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at KAIST. He is known for his work on structural graph theory and in particular for structures and algorithms relating to rank-width, clique-width, and branch-width. He published more than 80 journal papers. He won the Young Scientist Award from the South Korean government in 2012. and the TJ Park Young Professor Fellowship from the POSCO TJ Park Foundation in 2009. He has been an editor of Graphs and Combinatorics, SIAM Journal on Computing, and Journal of the Korean Mathematical Society and a founding member of Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology. He wrote a monthly article for the monthly magazine Math Donga for 4 years from 2016, sharing the latest research breakthroughs in mathematics. In the Korean Mathematical Society, he was appointed twice (2011–2012, 2017–2018) as an executive member of the board of trustees in charge of the Korean Mathematical Olympiad. He was a member of the Korean Mathematical Olympiad Committee for 2011–2018 and was the deputy leader of the South Korean team at the International Mathematical Olympiad in 2012 and 2018.

Education

Born in Yecheon County, Oum attended Daegu Science High School in Daegu from 1992. He then went to KAIST where he majored in mathematics and graduated with a B.S. in 1998. Studying in the Program of Applied and Computational Mathematics of Princeton University, he majored in graph theory and discrete mathematics. His dissertation was overseen by Professor Paul Seymour and Ph.D. was awarded in 2005.

Career From 1999 to 2002, Oum worked as a computer programmer in Korea. He was a visiting assistant professor in the School of Mathematics, Georgia Tech for 2005–2006 and a postdoctoral fellow under Jim Geelen in the Department of Combinatorics & Optimization in the University of Waterloo in 2007. In 2008, he joined the Department of Mathematical Sciences KAIST as an assistant professor before coming an associate professor and then full professor in 2011 and 2016, respectively. He was an affiliate professor in the School of Mathematics, Korea Institute for Advanced Study for several years. In 2018, he was appointed as the CI (Chief Investigator) of the Discrete Mathematics Group in the Pioneer Research Center for Mathematical and Computational Sciences at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS). This and the Pioneer Research Center for Biomolecular and Cellular Structure are the first of two such centers at IBS. In 2023, Oum became a KAIST Endowed Chair Professor and the following year resigned from KAIST and became a Distinguished Research Fellow at IBS.

Awards and honors 2022: Choi Seok-jeong Award 2017: Founding member of Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology 2012: Young Scientist Award, President of Korea 2011: Excellent Young Researcher Research Award, National Research Foundation of Korea 2010: Excellent Research Paper Award, Korean Mathematical Society 2009: TJ Park Junior Faculty Fellowship, POSCO TJ Park Foundation

References

External links Sang-il Oum's home page IBS Discrete Mathematics Group Oum Sang-il publications indexed by Google Scholar

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Oum Sang-il

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Oum Sang-il claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Oum Sang-il before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Oum Sang-il ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Oum Sang-il

In research: Oum Sang-il appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Oum Sang-il in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Oum Sang-il is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1976 births, 21st-century South Korean mathematicians, Graph theorists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Oum Sang-il outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Oum Sang-il in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Oum Sang-il means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Oum Sang-il out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Oum Sang-il in simple terms?

Why does Oum Sang-il matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Oum Sang-il?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Oum Sang-il.