Dr. Justin (Junseok) Ma
Junseok Ma received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology), Pohang, Korea, in 2020, 2022, and 2025, respectively. During his doctoral studies, he focused on the development of scalable, reconfigurable liquid crystal (LC) devices using techniques such as drop-on-demand (DoD) printing and laser writing. From 2023 to 2024, he was a Recognised Student in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford (Keble College), where he joined the Soft Matter Photonics Group to advance his work on adaptive LC-based optical systems.
He is currently a Jang Young-Sil Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Nature Sciences Research Institute and the Soft Material Assembly Group at KAIST, where he explores the design and processing of multifunctional composite materials for adaptive electronics and photonics. His research spans reconfigurable optoelectronic, microwave, and millimeter-wave devices, with particular emphasis on scalable material–device integration for smart, flexible, and wearable systems.
Dr. Ma has contributed to several national R&D programs. At KAIST, he serves as a researcher in the 6G Core Technology Development Program (IITP, Korea), where he investigates fast-switching, LC-based reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) antennas for next-generation wireless systems. He is also involved in the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) project on lightweight, beam-steerable mmWave antenna arrays, designed for mobile and airborne military platforms; the program spans 2021 to 2026 and totals KRW 6.718 billion in investment.
At POSTECH, he served as project lead on the LC Printing for Smart Devices initiative, where he developed high-resolution, full-color smart windows for commercial displays, extended the printed LC platform to tunable RF and optoelectronic components, and proposed an innovative fabrication method for large-area LC devices. In a separate project funded by the Samsung Science and Technology Foundation, he contributed to RIS-optimized LC materials for D-band communication and tunable mmWave components under the CORE: Sub-THz 6G initiative.
During his time at Oxford, he led research on DoD-printed electrochromic LC systems capable of simultaneous control over color and transmittance. His work also included the integration of advanced LC materials—such as push-pull azobenzenes and blue-phase structures—into printed antennas and light-driven devices.
He also participated in a multi-year collaboration with JNC Corporation (Japan), where he developed and optimized liquid crystal composites for microwave and millimeter-wave applications. This work contributed to the commercialization of new LC mixtures, including ZOC-A019XX, a material with a loss tangent of approximately 0.006 and tunability of ~0.33 at 28 GHz, tailored for use in 5G and satellite communication systems.
Earlier in his career, he held an internship at LG Display (Preliminary Research Team for OLED), where he researched advanced LCD and OLED technologies and proposed process-efficiency strategies for manufacturing workflows.
Dr. Ma has authored over 20 peer-reviewed papers in journals such as Advanced Materials, Advanced Optical Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, Dyes and Pigments, Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, and IEEE Access. His work has addressed critical challenges in tunability, integration, and process scalability for LC-based devices, and has been featured on the frontispiece cover of Advanced Materials.
His research has been recognized through multiple awards, including the Jang Young-Sil Postdoctoral Fellowship (KAIST, 2025), the POSTECHIAN Fellowship, the Grand Prize at the 8th Electromagnetic Wave Measurement Thesis Contest (KIEES), the BK21 FOUR Outstanding Graduate Student International Fellowship (University of Oxford), and the Samsung MX Division Research Sponsorship. He also received the Excellent Paper Challenge Prize and Excellence Award in the POSTECH Best Paper Competition.
Dr. Ma currently serves as a reviewer for Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, Liquid Crystals, and Engineering Research Express, and continues to pursue cross-disciplinary research toward scalable, reconfigurable platforms that bridge material design and high-frequency device technologies for future communication, sensing, and display systems.