Hak‑Joon Kim received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Chosun University, Gwangju, Korea in 1995, his M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Chosun University in 1997, and his Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics from Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Korea in 2002. He worked at the Center for NDE at Iowa State University, Iowa, USA, for 2 years from 2002 as a Post-Doctoral Researcher. Since 2005, he has been working at Sungkyunwkan University, and he is currently a Research Professor of Mechanical Engineering. His major research areas are the non-destructive evaluation of material characteristics and structural integrity using ultrasound, eddy currents, etc.