Professor Namho Lee of the Department of Wood Science and Technology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has received the 17th Proud Jeonbuk Person Award (Academic and Press category).

Professor Lee served as Vice‑President of Industry‑University Cooperation at Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) from 2009 for three years and four months. During that period he played a major role in ushering in the era of annual research funding totalling 100 billion won—the first time for a provincial university in 2009. He went on to secure research funding of 117.5 billion won in 2010 and 124.4 billion won in 2011, efforts that were recognized for helping JBNU rank first among national flagship universities in research funding.

In particular, he attracted and established large-scale research and academic promotion projects such as the High‑enthalpy Plasma Research Center Jeonbuk National University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the IT Convergence Next‑Generation Agricultural Machinery Comprehensive Technical Support Project, and Leading Research Centers (ERCs). Through these initiatives he helped build the research and academic infrastructure not only for JBNU but also for North Jeolla Province, and he made significant contributions to laying the groundwork for research and academic support for the development of the province's strategic industries.

He also provided multifaceted support to enable the proceedings published by four research institutes in the Humanities and Social Sciences at JBNU to qualify as candidate journals for listing by the National Research Foundation of Korea. He newly developed some 20 academic promotion programs — including a Seoul guest house, an official taxi service, and an indirect‑cost mileage system — which played a major role in upgrading the research competitiveness of JBNU and North Jeolla Province.

The awards ceremony is scheduled to be held on October 25 at the Jeonbuk Day commemorative event at the Korean Sori Arts Center.