SON Yonghoon holds a Bachelor of Agriculture degree from Seoul National University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (2001), a Master's degree in Landscape Architecture from SNU's Graduate School of Environmental Studies (2003), and a PhD in agriculture from the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Agriculture and Life Sciences (2007), where he studied at the Forest Landscape Planning Research Laboratory. After completing his PhD, SON Yonghoon worked at the Japan Travel Bureau Foundation and later served as an associate professor at Chiba University's Graduate School of Horticulture in Japan. Currently, he is a faculty member at Seoul National University's Graduate School of Environmental Studies, teaching in the Department of Environmental Design. SON Yonghoon's research interests focus on the conservation and utilization of natural environments, including urban green space planning, rural landscape planning, natural recreation forest planning, and national park management planning. His recent research has investigated the evaluation and typology of new ruralism in Korea, assessed landscape quality in Korea, and developed evaluation methods for public demand-based ecosystem services.