Assistant Professor, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Research Area: Systems and computational neuroscience in sleep and cognitive process

Award Citation: The AYSF Committee celebrates Dr. Jaekyung Kim's pioneering work in systems neuroscience, revealing how sleep supports motor learning and memory consolidation, and how circuit modulation enhances motor recovery following stroke. AYSF would like to support his innovative proposal to uncover the biological functions of dreams, particularly in creative problem-solving, which will establish a new frontier in neuroscience.

Bio: Jaekyung Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at KAIST, where he leads the Neural Processing Laboratory. His research explores how sleep shapes memory, neural dynamics, and higher cognitive functions, with a particular focus on uncovering how sleep and dreaming support creativity. He integrates systems and computational neuroscience with large-scale neural recordings, neuromodulator measurements, and closed-loop circuit manipulation. During his postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco, he established causal roles for sleep-dependent neural activity in memory consolidation, motor learning, and recovery after brain injury. Building on this foundation, his laboratory at KAIST is developing cross-species approaches spanning rodents, non-human primates, and humans to investigate the biological functions of dreaming and the neural mechanisms underlying creative cognition. His long-term goal is to establish an integrated gene–brain–behavior framework for understanding how sleep and dreams support adaptive behavior, creativity, and lifelong cognitive health.

Personal Web:https://sites.google.com/view/jk-lab