Hong Seomun, Ph.D.

Biography

I was born in Jangsu, Jeollabuk-do surrounded by the mountains. My family moved to Seoul (capital of South Korea) when I was seven years. After high school I attended Kookmin University in Seoul and obtained my BS in Forestry. During my undergraduate years I worked in Professor Eun-Shik Kim's Long-Term Ecological Research lab. I assisted with a PhD student's project focusing on decline of Christmas trees (Abies Koreana) of at the Hallasan National Park on Jeju Island. I also assisted with a project investigating desertification and Asian dusts in China and Northeast Asia. During the last summer of my BS program, I participated in a School for Field Studies sponsored by Boston University on Vancouver Island, Canada. The program focused on temperate rainforest ecology, forest management and wildlife. On Vancouver Island I developed a strong interest in wild animals, especially carnivores, that has continued to grow.  I was fascinated seeing wild black bears while kayaking along the shore.

After finishing courses for a MS degree, I worked on an Asian Black Bear restoration project at Jirisan National Park for two and a half years. The project was a pioneering wildlife restoration effort in Korea. I studied the bear's diet by scat analysis. Later, I worked for the National Institute of Biological Research (NIBR) at the Ministry of Environment in South Korea studying raccoon dogs, leopard cats and other wild mammals. As an officer in the Ministry of Environment in South Korea, I participated in two Scientific Committees and two Standing Committees for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.  I also served as a scientific committee member for the Convention on Biological Diversity on behalf of South Korea.  These assignments involved travel to Mexico, Israel and Switzerland.

For my PhD research at Texas Tech University, I will investigate the diets of rare and endangered carnivores emphasizing non-invasive techniques. Drs. Philip Gipson and John Baccus will be my co-advisors. My wife is working for Korea National Park Service and my daughter is a student in a kindergarten in my country. As hobbies, I like to play soccer, baseball, basketball and ping-pong. I also love hiking and composing poems about nature. In the future, I would like to be a conservation leader in Korea and help our people to understand and appreciate Natural Resources as the people of the United States do. We have many wonderful Natural Resources in Korea and I want to help our people learn to enjoy them more and to use them wisely.