Col. Kyu-Yeol Lyu, who spent the last year in the Department of Systems and Engineering Management at the Air Force Institute of Technology’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management, returned home to Korea on 28 December 2006. Col. Lyu was at AFIT as part of the Engineer and Scientist Exchange Program, administered by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. ESEP is a Department of Defense effort to promote international cooperation in military research, development, and acquisition through the exchange of defense scientists and engineers. As a visiting scientist from the Korea National Defense University, Lyu was invited to AFIT as an exchange scientist.

Col. Lyu is no stranger to the school, the United States, or foreign academic institutions. He received his MS degree from AFIT in 1983 in Systems Management and his PhD from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, United Kingdom, in 1989. He later served as the Defense Logistics Service Attaché in the Korean Embassy, Washington DC, from 1994 to 1997. Lyu’s international reputation also includes having worked with (soon to be) United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at the Korean Embassy, Washington DC. Their paths have crossed several times in their respective careers, and Col. Lyu is proud they both hail from the South Korean Province of Chungcheong-do.

Currently AFIT has 10 Korean students attending classes on campus. “Future programs to expand student and faculty opportunities are currently in the planning stages,” says Paul Wolf, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Graduate School, who traveled to KNDU this past March to discuss possibilities. Mark Goltz, Professor of Engineering and Environmental Management in the Department of Systems and Engineering Management, spent a six-month sabbatical at Ewha University in Seoul in 2001. Sponsored by the AFOSR Windows on Asia program, it was the first time an AFIT professor went on sabbatical in Korea. Col. Lyu anticipates US-Korea relations will improve with the coming 2007 elections in Korea, and he is hopeful that the academic partnerships between AFIT and KNDU will continue to develop.

Col. Lyu reflected on those memorable moments of his past year, which included making a speech in honor of Korean War veterans last July and participating as a member of the Korean contingent in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parade last January. He enjoyed the close working relations, kindness, and support of the AFIT faculty and staff and was very appreciative of the support shown him from the Dayton Korean Baptist Church, of which he was a member. He marvels at the pace at which Dayton has grown and changed since he first arrived as a student in 1983. While Col. Lyu sadly departs AFIT, he happily looks forward to reuniting with his family, which has grown by two with the arrival of boy and girl grandchildren.