Young Joon Lee

Dr. Young Joon Lee is a pioneering academic and interdisciplinary researcher working at the frontier of artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), and financial economics. His work seamlessly integrates deep learning and economic modeling, redefining how machine intelligence can enhance transparency, efficiency, and ethical responsibility in decision-making systems.

Known for bridging the divide between academic research and real-world impact, Dr. Lee leads transformative projects that connect large-scale AI systems to practical applications in finance, education, and sustainability. His contributions have advanced the development of Agentic AI architectures, trustworthy multimodal learning, and AI-driven economic forecasting models.

---

Key Areas of Expertise

• AI & Machine Learning – Expertise in large language models (LLMs), knowledge graphs, and agentic architectures for autonomous reasoning.
• NLP in Finance – Building text-mining systems that extract economic and financial signals from large-scale media data.
• Ethical & Transparent AI – Advocating for fairness, accountability, and interpretability across AI lifecycles.
• Behavioral Economics & AI – Designing models inspired by cognitive and behavioral insights to improve AI decision-making systems.

---

Leadership & Ongoing Projects

• AI-Based Autonomous Road Repair Robot — Leading a national R&D consortium with Seoul National University, KAIST, and RovoRoad to create the world’s first AI-powered autonomous road maintenance system.
• Agentic AI-Based Intelligent Education Platform — Directing a 4-way collaboration (Cheju Halla University × Saltlux × Yonsei University × KAIST) to design dialogic AI systems for personalized and trustworthy learning.
• KOICA–TIU–Cheju Halla AI Training Center (Uzbekistan) — Serving as Project Director for KOICA’s flagship AI education hub in Central Asia, training over 100 educators and engineers in AI ethics, GenAI, and applied ML.
• Sustainable Transition with AI (STAI) — Co-leading a global series of workshops integrating AI, ESG, and climate action, exploring responsible innovation for sustainable futures.
• Jeju AI Computing & Innovation Ecosystem — Building Jeju’s regional AI innovation cluster in partnership with ESTsoft and AWS to empower next-generation digital and AI professionals.

---

Teaching Philosophy

Dr. Lee is deeply committed to cultivating the next generation of AI engineers and researchers. His pedagogy combines rigorous technical training with critical reflection on AI’s societal impacts. By encouraging students to balance analytical precision with ethical reasoning, he equips them not only to build powerful systems but to deploy them responsibly in diverse real-world contexts.

---

Core Values

• Innovation – Pursuing bold ideas that expand the limits of AI research and its applications.
• Empathy – Designing technologies that reflect and reinforce human dignity and collective well-being.
• Collaboration – Building bridges across academia, industry, and public institutions to achieve systemic change.
• Sustainability – Ensuring that AI serves as a tool for long-term social, economic, and environmental resilience.
• Lifelong Learning – Continuously evolving with the pace of discovery to remain at the forefront of AI innovation.

---

Fun Fact

Outside the lab, Dr. Lee enjoys exploring new languages—currently Chinese and French (earning the friendly nickname “Duo nerd” from his son)—and delving into the philosophical dimensions of AI consciousness and hallucination. After all, even cutting-edge researchers occasionally ponder what it means for machines to “dream.”

---

Tagline

“Redefining the future of finance and sustainability through ethical AI innovation.”