PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Minkyun Noh

Also known as 노민균

Minkyun Noh is a mechanical engineer and robotics researcher whose work includes mechatronics and semi-supervised aircraft fault detection. He earned degrees at Seoul National University and MIT, worked at LIGO and UBC, and joined KAIST in 2022. In 2025, he coauthored a semi-supervised study of electric-aircraft propeller faults and received the Korean Society for Precision Engineering's Young Researcher Award. Since 2026, he is a joint-appointment professor in KAIST's Department of AX, School of AI.

Now at
KAIST and School of AI

Timeline

  1. 2012–2018

    A jumping robot and engineering degrees

    In 2012, he earns a BS in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Seoul National University and coauthors the flea-inspired catapult mechanism for miniature jumping robots. He completes an SM in mechanical engineering at MIT in 2014 and a PhD there in 2018.

  2. 2018–2021

    Postdoctoral work and a LIGO mirror

    He joins MIT's LIGO Laboratory as a postdoctoral associate in 2018, at the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. In 2021, he coauthors a paper on a piezo-deformable mirror for wavefront control in Advanced LIGO.

  3. 2019–2022

    Assistant professor at UBC

    From 2019 to 2022, he serves as an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of British Columbia.

  4. 2022

    Assistant professor at KAIST

    In 2022, he joins KAIST as an assistant professor in its Department of Mechanical Engineering.

  5. 2024

    Joining the KAIST Robotics Program

    In 2024, he joins the KAIST Robotics Program. His research interests include mechatronics, electric motors, motor drives, magnetic levitation, actuators and sensors.

  6. 2025

    Semi-supervised propeller fault detection

    In 2025, he coauthors a study that proposes a semi-supervised VAE-GAN to predict propeller faults from normal motor-electric-signal data in electric aircraft.

  7. 2025

    A Young Researcher Award

    In 2025, he receives the Korean Society for Precision Engineering's Young Researcher Award.

  8. Since 2026

    Joint appointment in KAIST AI

    Since 2026, he is a joint-appointment professor in KAIST's Department of AX, School of AI. His AI competencies include reinforcement learning and control, with applications in mobility and robotics. He is also an assistant professor in KAIST's Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Career

  1. Since 2026School of AIJoint-Appointment Professor
  2. Since 2022KAISTAssistant Professor
  3. 2019–2022University of British ColumbiaAssistant Professor
  4. 2018–2021Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPostdoctoral Associate

Education

  1. 2018Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPhD
  2. 2014Massachusetts Institute of TechnologySM
  3. 2012Seoul National UniversityBS

From the biography.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  3. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIIncludes KAIST. We estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes KAIST. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Minkyun Noh yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Minkyun Noh - Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology pure.kaist.ac.kr. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Flea | SNU Biorobotics Lab. biorobotics.snu.ac.kr. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. [2110.00674] Piezo-deformable Mirrors for Active Mode Matching in Advanced LIGO arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. ROBOTICS PROGRAM KAIST robots.kaist.ac.kr. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Propeller fault-detection method for electric-propulsion aircraft using motor signals and generative model-based semi-supervised learning - Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology pure.kaist.ac.kr. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Featured Activities in Spring 2026 | KAIST MatriX kmatrix.kaist.ac.kr. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Minkyun Noh pml.kaist.ac.kr. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. People pml.kaist.ac.kr. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Faculty | AX aicollege.kaist.ac.kr. Checked 21 October 2026.