Yang Ji-won (born 1949) is a professor in Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) and CEO of ABC (Advanced Biomass R&D Center), which is a key research institutes for biofuel and bio-refinery in South Korea.^[1]

He received B.S. from Seoul National University, and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. He joined KAIST as a faculty member in 1986 and his research area has covered a wide range of topics in environmental biotechnology. Dr. Yang has more than 200 publications and supervised 50 post-graduate students.

Recently, he served as a Vice-President for External Affairs of KAIST for 4 years.^[2] Since 2010, he serves as a CEO of ABC. ABC is currently striving for being a global leader in the biofuel and bio-refinery technology. Approximately 200 million US dollars will be funded by MEST(Ministry of Education, Science and Technology) for 9 years. More than 200 experts in a wide variety of research fields including biochemical engineering and molecular biology are employed or participated in ABC.

He is a recipient of various awards for significant contribution to the research innovations in environmental or microalgal biotechnology from the South Korean government or many academic societies.^[3] In addition, Dr. Yang showed various activities across many fields of academia, civil society, and government. Dr. Yang had served as the President of Korean Society of Biotechnology and Bioengineering,^[4] and the editor-in-chief for the Korean Journal of Soil and Groundwater. He also served as a judge of national R&D projects for South Korean government and an active member in environmental NGOs, appointed as a co-chairman of the Green Consumer Network and the chairman of the Daejeon Green Growth Forum.^[5] With these experiences, he is working to build an international ecocity coalition committed to the sustainable development.

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