Stony Brook University Technology and Society

We are absolutely thrilled to share some wonderful news and a deeply proud moment for our department! Team OptimiPrime—composed entirely of our very own Department of Technology and Society (DTS) students, Sunwoo Han, Sean Kim, and Sunghun Park—has won 1st Place and the Grand Prize at Hackathon The X 2026, held at the Incheon Global Campus. Competing against 14 highly talented groups, our exceptional students truly stood out as the only team proudly representing DTS. Their winning project, UnitTrace, is a secure macOS-based application perfectly tailored to the hackathon's theme of “Offline to Online” digital transformation. Rather than building a typical consumer app, the team took on a highly specialized and practical challenge: how to safely digitize sensitive paper documents in ultra-high-security environments where the internet, cloud storage, smartphones, and USB drives are strictly banned. UnitTrace brilliantly bridges this gap by turning scanned documents into encrypted, searchable, and auditable digital records—all running locally on a closed workstation without any public internet access or external APIs. What makes this victory even more special is how our students seamlessly connected classroom learning with real-world application. One of the students shared that the team directly applied the economic and project management frameworks they learned in EST 392 with Prof. Pennings. Instead of presenting just a technical demo, Team OptimiPrime analyzed UnitTrace as a real-world product, integrating market structure analysis, advanced product differentiation (such as local AES-256 encryption and user watermarks), and a viable defense procurement business model. While UnitTrace is currently a powerful prototype, this hackathon has beautifully proven that meaningful digital transformation is possible even in the most restricted environments. Please join us in warmly celebrating Sunwoo, Sean, and Sunghun for their creativity, hard work, and brilliant representation of our department! We could not be prouder of your incredible achievement.

The Department of Technology and Society’s BS student, Dongchan Kim, has achieved a remarkable victory at the "MIT Reality Hack," one of the world's premier XR (Extended Reality) and spatial computing competitions hosted by the MIT Media Lab. Representing the TS Department on a global stage, Dongchan’s team was honored with the Overall Final Grand Prize, as well as 1st Place in the Meta Track. Following this success, Dongchan was invited by Meta to discuss his project’s future and has been invited to present at a Spatial Computing conference in California this June—a leading event for XR professionals and researchers worldwide. The Department is incredibly proud of Dongchan’s success and his commitment to driving innovation. (Relevant Links): MIT Reality Hack: https://www.realityhackatmit.com/ AWE USA 2026: https://www.awexr.com/usa-2026/

DTS Prof. Neal Dreamson’s strong publication record, the impact of his work, and the notable quality of his scholarly contributions have placed him in the top 0.5% of all scholars worldwide. He has been awarded Top Scholar status based on his accomplishments over the totality of his career (lifetime) and/or over the prior five years: Top Scholar - Prior 5 Years #32 Digital electronics (Educational Technology) #73 Pedagogy ScholarGPS (https://scholargps.com) provides rankings of individuals and institutions Overall (in all Fields), in 14 broad Fields (such as Medicine, Engineering, or Humanities), in 177 Disciplines (such as Surgery, Computer Science, or History), and in over 350,000 Specialties (such as Cancer, Artificial Intelligence, or Ethics). Thanks to Prof. Dreamson’s achievement, SUNY Korea has been listed to the ScholarGPS website first time.

  Prof. Anthony Pennings gave a talk on how science and technology can address important issues of landslides and urban flooding at the 2024 United Nations Public Service Forum, ‘Fostering Innovation Amid Global Challenges: A Public Sector Perspective,’ held at Songdo Convensia from June 24-26, 2024. He discussed how integrating AI with remote sensing technologies and ground-based observations enhances the monitoring and management of landslide and flooding disasters. For more information, check out his blog at https://apennings.com/space-systems/ai-and-remote-sensing-for-monitoring-landslides-and-flooding/.  

  Dr. Sangchan Park received the 'Service The Prime Award' at the Korea Service Grand Prix 2024 on July 3rd, 2024. The award was given in recognition of Dr. Park's significant contributions to the development of the service industry through his unwavering commitment to improving service quality and customer satisfaction.

Dr. Sangchan Park has written an insightful article discussing the importance of both customer-employee and customer-customer interactions in creating loyal customers. He highlights Matthew Dixon's perspective on how reducing customer effort through these interactions can enhance service quality and reduce costs. The article also explores the transformative role of AI tools like chatbots, which are expected to manage over 95% of customer interactions by 2025, thereby revolutionizing customer service with automated responses and increased efficiency. Link: https://www.mk.co.kr/news/contributors/11052908

DTS Professor Suzana Brown played a key role in organizing the 18th IFIP Working Group 9.4 Conference on the Implications of Information and Digital Technologies for Development, held in Cape Town from May 20-22, 2024. At the conference, she chaired a session on “ICT in Displacement and Conflict Zones” and presented her paper, “Climate Change and Displacement: Emerging ICT Innovations from the World's Largest Refugee Camp.” Additionally, Professor Brown led a panel discussion on “Artificial Intelligence and Ethics in the Global South.”

Prof. Sangchan Park and Prof. Sira Maliphol served as guest editors for Special Issue on Digital Twins in Industry 4.0. Their editorial manuscript (ID: electronics-3061223) has recently been accepted and will be published shortly by MDPI. The aim of this Special Issue is to identify the potential for digital twins in industry 4.0, not only in the manufacturing industry but also in smart communities, in smart education, and in smart development. (Link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/electronics/special_issues/I1049S831T#editors)

Dr. Anthony J. Pennings has been invited by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) to participate in a panel on Science & Technology Innovation for Responding to Landslides and Urban Floods. This event is part of the 2024 United Nations Public Service Forum, which will take place from June 24 to 26, 2024, under the theme ‘Fostering Innovation amid Global Challenges: A Public Sector Perspective’.

"Be'real" Team (Nayoung Kim from GUGC, Seunghyun Shin from SUNYK, Hasung Bae from GUGC from left to right) L'Oréal Korea has announced that the team "Be'real" emerged as the winner in the 2024 L'Oréal Brandstorm Competition. Seunghyun Shin, a TSM major student from SUNY Korea participated in the competition and received the final winner awards. The L'Oréal Brandstorm Competition aimed at young people worldwide, fosters creative thinking and entrepreneurial spirit. The domestic competition witnessed the highest number of participants ever, with the "Be'real" team securing victory with innovative ideas on predicting hair loss and virtual wig services. They will now represent South Korea in the international competition held in London, with full support from L'Oréal Korea, including internship opportunities in preparing for the global event. For more information, you may refer to the below news article. https://www.enewstoday.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=2119645

Prof. Gayoung Park published guidelines in the metaverse related standard and security issues. Congratulations on her achievements! ITU is International Telecommunication Union which is the UN specialized agency for information and communication technology, which is one of the main pillars of DTS. Link: - FGMV-03: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/focusgroups/mv/Documents/List%20of%20FG-MV%20deliverables/FGMV-03.pdf - FGMV-06: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/focusgroups/mv/Documents/List%20of%20FG-MV%20deliverables/FGMV-06.pdf

  The Department of Technology and Society's Accelerated BS/MS student, Hyein Lee, is featured on CBS News as researchers work towards improving recycling rates across New York state. During her visit to Stony Brook campus, the student actively participates in Dr. David Tonjes' (SBU-DTS Faculty) waste management research lab, contributing to the enhancement of New York's recycling practices. This research initiative aims to educate the public, influence policy, and ultimately foster a more sustainable world by reducing landfill waste, conserving energy, and promoting the reuse of raw materials. (Link to the News Article: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/newyork/news/stony-brook-university-recycling-study/)

  TS students enrolled in Prof. Suzana Brown's 'EST 364: How to Build a Startup' won third place and received a prize of 1,000,000 KRW in the IGC Startup Competition 2023.   The name of the startup is 'The Grid Laboratory' which aims to provide a platform for brands and games. (Participants: Prof. Suzana Brown (advisor), Hyungmin Park (team leader), Kyung Seok Kim, Ilkuk Son, Chanyoung Na, Joon Jeon, Ryangjin Lee, Byungchul Cho)

On October 31, Prof. Suzana Brown gave a talk at the Incheon National University (INU)'s "Global Environmental Issues and Public Problems" course on "Climate Refugees: Concept, Case Studies and ICTs". It covered the basic concept of climate refugees, the problems and complexity of its terminology, various case studies, and the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for refugees.   If you wish to find out more about climate refugees, you may reach out to Prof. Suzana Brown via her email address at suzana.brown@sunykorea.ac.kr.

  The Department of Technology and Society held a 3rd forum of “Annual Information and Communications Technologies for Development (ICT4D) Faculty Panel: The Enabling Possibilities of Digital Development” on October 16th, 2023. It was moderated by Dr. Anthony Pennings. Five speakers participated in this event: Dr. James Larson, Dr. Suzana Brown, Dr. Sira Maliphol, Dr. Gayoung Park, and Dr. Mark Whitaker . This forum was obviously a great opportunity for DTS students; however, it was also helpful to students from other departments. It was a chance to interact with a group of DTS professors who are experts in the ICT4D sector. A total of 70 students from various majors took advantage of the opportunity to participate in this forum. After Dr. Pennings’ introduction on the “3rd Annual ICT4D Faculty Panel: The Enabling Possibilities of Digital Development,” each professor provided a short introduction, and then spoke about their personal experiences, research interests, the agenda they have researched, a detailed explanation of the research, examples of student reports, and future research. One commonality amongst the professors is that each mentioned asking students to come up with an approach to technology issues focusing on development. Additionally, they stated that ESG and SDG frameworks are important. ESG refers to the non-financial elements of a company: environment, social, and governance. SDG is an abbreviation for Sustainable Development Goals, also known as Global Goals.    Written by Student Reporter, Hyeonha Hwang (hyeonha.hwang@stonybrook.edu)