About SNU / SNU Awards

Distinguished SNU Members

SNU Awards /

Distinguished SNU Members

Seoul National University honors the people who made distinguished achievements in their lives with the Distinguished SNU Members Award. It has been the highest honor bestowed upon SNU alumni or faculty since 1991. The award is granted annually on the founding anniversary of the university during the official anniversary ceremony.

CHIN Unsuk/Music composer

CHIN Unsuk is a globally recognized classical music composer; She won prestigious awards including the Grawemeyer Award in 2004, the Arnold Schonberg Prize in 2005, the Music Composition Prize of the Prince Pierre Foundation for Gougalon in 2010 and the Wihuri Sibelius Prize in 2017.

CHO Young-rae/Human rights lawyer

CHO Young-rae(1947-1990) was a distinguished human rights lawyer who took the most important human rights cases that shifted Korean legal history. Cho is also the author of A Single Spark, a biography of JEON Tae-il, the labor rights activist who committed suicide by burning himself to death in protest of the poor working conditions in Korean factories.

HYUN Sin-Kyu/Professor, Department of Forest Science, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Professor HYUN Sin-Kyu(1911-1986) genetically developed trees that grow quickly in Korea's natural environment, namely the Pinus Rigitaeda and Hyun Poplar, which saved Korean peninsula from massive floods.

KIM Jaegwon/Professor in Philosophy, Brown University

Dr. KIM Jaegwon is an authority of philosophy who authored a well-regarded textbook Philosophy of Mind. He studies mental causation, mind-body problem and the metaphysics of supervenience and events.

SHIN Young-soo/Regional Director for the Western Pacific, World Health Organization

Dr. SHIN Young-soo was elected as the Regional Director for the Western Pacific of the World Health Organization (WHO) for two terms. He was the first regional director who came from outside of the WHO.