Youngwan Kim is the consul general for the Republic of Korea Consulate in Los Angeles. Kim is a career diplomat who joined the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Korea in 1993. He has worked at various ministries of the Korean Government, including the Foreign Ministry, the Unification Ministry and the Office for Government Policy Coordination in the Prime Minister’s Office. Immediately prior to his current post as consul general in LA, he served as director-general for national security and foreign policy in the prime minister’s office. His most recent foreign post was as a member of the Panel of Experts, UN Security Council Sanctions Committee at the United Nations headquarters New York. His other foreign posts include Washington D.C., Beijing and Baghdad. Kim graduated from Yonsei University in 1992 and received a master’s degree from the University of Virginia in 2001.

Jonathan (Jon) Arenberg is the chief mission architect of Science and Robotic Missions for civil and commercial space at Northrop Grumman Space. As a Northrop Grumman Fellow, he leads engineering and concept development for future science missions. Previously, he directed the company’s studies of potential successor missions to the James Webb Space Telescope as part of the recent astrophysics decadal review and Astrophysics Probe Explorer proposals. 

Arenberg has more than 35 years of experience working on astronomical programs such as the Chandra X-ray Observatory, development of the starshade and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. He held several positions on the Webb project including the structural technology test lead, system design leader, systems engineering manager and finally chief engineer. In addition to his work on astronomical systems, he has also contributed to major high-energy and tactical laser systems, laser component engineering, metrology, optical inspection and technology development projects. 

A triple UCLA alum, Arenberg received a bachelor of science degree in physics, and a master of science and Ph.D. in engineering. He is a fellow of the international optics and photonics society, SPIE, and an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. 

Artur Davoyan is an associate professor at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Fellow. His research group is developing new materials for advancing space exploration with an aim of making it fast and accessible. At UCLA, Davoyan heads the Advanced Space Systems Laboratory exploring how light and materials interact at the nanoscale, with a focus on spacecraft propulsion, energy harvesting and communications. He leads NASA’s Extreme Solar Sailing mission study, with a goal of enabling fast-transit interstellar probe missions. 

In addition to being an active contributor to NASA’s Solar Gravity Lens Concept, Davoyan is also involved in Breakthrough Starshot — part of the Breakthrough Initiatives that aims to send a light-propelled probe to the Alpha Centauri star system 4.37 light-years away. His expertise is in materials science, metamaterials, photonics and astronautics. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty in 2018, Davoyan held postdoctoral fellowships at Caltech and the University of Pennsylvania.

Achuta Kadambi is an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. He leads an AI research group that develops novel AI models that can one day discover new physical and engineering principles. Kadambi is the recipient of several early career awards including ones from the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He was also named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. Recently, he received the Outstanding Young Electrical Engineer Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers honor society, awarded annually to one winner under 35 years old. 

Kadambi has co-founded two California companies to commercialize technologies, one of which was acquired by Alphabet for its robot automation technology. Kadambi has filed more than 70 patents, over 35 of which have been issued to date. He has also co-authored a textbook in MIT Press on computational imaging. He received his Ph.D. from MIT in 2018.

In-Cheol Lim is the executive vice president of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) and the member of the Standing Advisory Group for Nuclear Energy of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which advises the director general in the area of nuclear power. He is also the project executive of a consortium composed of KAERI, Hyundai Engineering Company and MPR Associates. The group was recently selected as the design provider for building the NextGen Missouri University Research Reactor. His research and service in KAERI has focused on development and utilization of research reactors, management of research activities as well as international cooperation. He contributed to six IAEA guidance documents on research reactors and nuclear research infrastructure.

Lim obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degree in nuclear engineering from Seoul National University in 1984 and 1986 respectively. He received his Ph.D. in 1996 from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. He has been working at KAERI since 1984.

As the vice president of business development services for SOLV Energy, Reegan oversees building strategic relationships in the renewable energy industry with new and existing clients. He focuses on opportunities in various areas including solar & battery energy storage system operations and maintenance, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), renew & repower, and substation annual & quadrennial testing.

His responsibilities include managing client interactions and feedback, assisting SOLV Energy’s business units with crucial decision making, improving partner communication, and striving for operational excellence. He leverages his extensive experience and connections in the renewables industry to carry out his duties effectively.

With a career spanning 30 years, Reegan has honed his expertise in managing sales and marketing operations, leading national business development teams, and driving high-growth products and services to traditional markets. He has consistently demonstrated his financial acumen by maintaining profit and loss responsibilities.

Elizabeth Reynolds is a strategic leader operating at the intersection of space, defense, and biology. She brings over 10 years of experience in open innovation and commercialization of new products, as well as first-hand experience in high-growth technology startups, and is leveraging this to support today’s aerospace renaissance.

Elizabeth is the co-founder of a new non-profit, Space Age, dedicated to rapidly developing and maturing the capabilities needed for human space exploration, from expanded capabilities in low Earth orbit to Mars missions. In her prior role as the managing director of Starburst’s US business, she spearheaded the expansion of startup accelerator programming in the US and globally, with a particular focus on dual-use technologies. She led many groundbreaking initiatives — including SCALE Aerospace Ventures in partnership with UCLA and the Boryung-funded Care in Space Challenge — to accelerate commercialization and market adoption of emerging aerospace and defense capabilities. She is also an executive advisor for the Methuselah Foundation and a partner at The Flying Object venture fund.

Schaffer Grimm is the director of industry relations at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. He fosters collaboration between industry and academia with the intent to spur the commercialization of innovations at UCLA. He teaches Entrepreneurship for Engineers and is part of the NSF I-Corps program. Prior to joining UCLA, Grimm co-founded Craytex LLC, specializing in carbon nanotube composites. He also worked at Northrop Grumman where his role involved managing operations of the Microelectronics Products and Services Foundry. He has an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from USC.

Junyoung Park is an associate professor in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and co-director of the UCLA Metabolomics Center. Park’s research group investigates systems biology and metabolic engineering. The group’s dual research goals are to elucidate metabolic regulation in microbes for sustainable bioproduct synthesis, and to quantify the plasticity and the compatibility of cancer and immune cell metabolism for discovery and potentiation of cancer therapy. 

Park received his bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and bioengineering from UC San Diego and master’s and doctorate in chemical engineering from Princeton University. His research accomplishments include the conversion of carbon dioxide into biofuels and specialty chemicals derived from non-natural products by engineering microbial metabolism. His recent awards include National Institutes of Health Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award and Hellman Fellowship. Before joining UCLA, he was a postdoctoral researcher at MIT. 

AI Spera utilizes AI-based cyber threat intelligence to derive high-value information, visualizing attack surfaces through the perspective of an attacker. The company gathers and analyzes new patterns for swift threat responses, bolstering security for individuals, businesses and institutions. AI Spera’s Criminal IP detects vulnerabilities in all assets such as domains, IP addresses, SSL certificates and applications — all conveniently displayed on its web-access dashboard.

Cosmo Robotics serves individuals across their entire lifespan, leveraging cutting-edge wearable robotic solutions. With the motto of realizing “warm technology,” Cosmo Robotics aims to enhance the quality of life and fundamentally transform daily experiences in the field of rehabilitation. The company has launched wearable medical robots for efficient lower-limb rehabilitation as well as home-based walking training for individuals with muscle weakness or hemiplegia.

IROVA is a human-technology company pursuing happiness and convenience for humankind by serving various industries with robot platforms. The company has launched a caddy robot optimized for solo golf rounding that follows the golfer carrying the golf bag, offering completely individualized, on-person robotic caddy service.

Opal AI is a spatial-intelligence company that turns multi-sensor Earth-observation data into actionable insights for critical-infrastructure and environmental-risk stakeholders. The company has launched FireVision, a proactive wildfire risk-assessment platform that fuses NASA-grade satellite imagery, AI-driven vegetation-growth mapping and localized weather analytics to deliver daily fire-potential indices, scenario planning and “FireGPT” natural-language explanations for utilities, insurers and public-safety agencies.