Jungjoon Park
Postdoctoral Researcher · NeuroAI Group (PI: Sungho Hong), Center for Memory and Glioscience, Institute for Basic Science (IBS)
Daejeon, Republic of Korea
About
I study how context shapes adaptive cognition — from social memory circuits in rodents to context-dependent representations in multimodal AI. I build computational tools for dense 3D behavioral quantification and pursue a NeuroAI vision where neuroscience and machine intelligence mutually advance.
Education
Sep. 2013 - Aug. 2022
Ph.D. in Bio & Brain Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
- Dissertation: “Behavioral and Genetic Study on Postnatal Factors of Empathy: The Differential Contributions of Social Context and Brain Areas on Observational Fear Learning”
Sep. 2010 - Aug. 2013
M.S. in Bio & Brain Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
- Thesis: “Investigation of Empathy in Terms of Age and Memory”
Mar. 2005 - Aug. 2010
B.S. in Bio & Brain Engineering (Minor in Management Science), KAIST, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
Experience
Sep. 2026 - Present
Postdoctoral Researcher, NeuroAI Group (PI: Sungho Hong), Center for Memory and Glioscience, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Daejeon, Republic of Korea
Aug. 2025 - Aug. 2026
Postdoctoral Fellow, AMILab, KAIST School of Computing
- Hosted by Prof. Tae-Hyun Oh (AMILab PI); supported by the InnoCore Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (MSIT/NRF).
- Vision-Language Models & conditional visual similarity: co-authored CLAY (CVPR 2026) on modulating visual similarity in a VLM embedding space.
- 3D Gaussian Splatting (3D-GS) for animal reconstruction & behavior analysis (ongoing): developing a multi-view geometry (MVG) + neural-representation pipeline that reconstructs freely-moving animals in 3D/4D and extracts quantitative behavioral descriptors.
Oct. 2024 - May 2025
Impact Scholar, Impact Scholars Program (ISP), Neuromatch Academy, Virtual
- Selected for an intensive AI fellowship with hands-on research and mentorship; completed mentored research on LLM-based emotion recognition.
Aug. 2022 - May 2024
Co-founder, Chief Operating Officer & Research Director, ACTNOVA, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
- Co-founded and scaled a neuroscience-AI startup, raising ₩4.3B in pre-Series A and growing the team to five researchers.
Jan. 2012 - Feb. 2018 / Nov. 2014 - Feb. 2018
Trainee → Researcher, Center for Cognition and Sociality (CCS), IBS, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
- Performed chemogenetics, in-vivo electrophysiology, and behavioral assays to map affective empathy and remote social memory circuits.
Mar. 2006 - Aug. 2010 / Mar. 2018 - Aug. 2022
Researcher, Brain Dynamics Laboratory, KAIST, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
- Processed non-human primate behavioral datasets and human fMRI data; analyzed cross-species behavioral and cognitive neuroscience experiments to uncover neural correlates of empathy.
Mar. 2011 - Dec. 2012
Trainee, Brain Science Institute (BSI), KIST, Seoul, Republic of Korea
- Studied rodent social behavior and system consolidation mechanisms including memory specificity & generalization trade-off.
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Conference Articles
- Lim, S.; Lee, H.; Park, J.-J.; Oh, T.-H. CLAY: Conditional Visual Similarity Modulation in Vision-Language Embedding Space. IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 2026. arXiv:2604.11539
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
- Park, J.-J.; Ha, S.; Shin, H.-S.; Jeong, J. Experience of a Hierarchical Relationship between a Pair of Mice Specifically Influences Their Affective Empathy toward Each Other. Genes, Brain and Behavior 21(5):e12810, 2022. DOI — [Wiley Top Cited Article 2022–2023]
- Authors: Jungjoon Park, Seungshin Ha, Hee-Sup Shin, Jaeseung Jeong.
- Lee, J.-H.; Latchoumane, C.-F. V.; Park, J.-J.; Kim, J.; Jeong, J.; Lee, K.-H.; Shin, H.-S. The Rostroventral Part of the Thalamic Reticular Nucleus Modulates Fear Extinction. Nature Communications 10:4637, 2019. DOI
- Authors: Joon-Hyuk Lee, Charles-Francois V. Latchoumane, Jungjoon Park, Jinhyun Kim, Jaeseung Jeong, Kwang-Hyung Lee, Hee-Sup Shin.
- Keum, S.; Park, J.; Kim, A.; Park, J.; Kim, K. K.; Jeong, J.; Shin, H.-S. Variability in Empathic Fear Response among 11 Inbred Strains of Mice. Genes, Brain and Behavior 15(2):231–242, 2016. DOI
Peer-Reviewed Workshop Posters (Non-Archival)
- Daegun Kim, Jineun Kim, Wongyo Jung, Jungjoon Park, Mingyu Kim, Anna Shin, Yong-Cheol Jeong, Seahyung Park, Gwanhoo Shin, Ye Won Lee, Jea Kwon, Daesoo Kim AVATAR: AI Vision Analysis for Three-Dimensional Action in Real-Time. CV4Animals Workshop @ CVPR, 2022. Non-archival (not in CVPR proceedings).
Preprints
- Park, J.-J.; Mashayekh Esfahan, N.; Narayan, A. (N. = Nikoo, A. = Arasu) Toward Advancing Emotion Recognition in LLMs: A Comparative Study of Prompt Strategies, Few-Shot Learning, and Model Ensembling. Zenodo, Apr 2025. DOI
Patents
- Lim, S.; Oh, T.-H.; Park, J.-J. Method for Modality Retrieval Based on Condition Information and Electronic Device Performing the Same. Korean Patent Application No. 10-2026-0097790 (filed May 29, 2026; claims priority from provisional 10-2026-0045953, filed Mar 13, 2026). Applicants: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. / KAIST. Co-inventor. Filed, pending examination.
Selected Presentations
Invited Talks & Seminars
- Invited Speaker: “A NeuroAI Perspective on Neural 3D Behavioral Analysis and Context-Dependent Neural Computation,” Neuroscience-inspired AI Research Group, Center for Memory and Glioscience, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), May 19, 2026.
- Seminar: “The Virtuous Cycle of NeuroAI: Bridging Biological and Artificial Intelligence,” KAIST AMI Lab, Feb 2026.
- Co-Presenter: “Advancing Emotion Recognition in LLMs,” Impact Scholars Program Seminar, Virtual, Mar 29, 2025.
- Speaker: “An Integrated Perspective on Emotion: Multi-modal Representation & Categorical-Dimensional Mapping,” Neuraka, Feb 20, 2025.
- Invited Speaker: “Trends in Computational Neuroethology: The Past & Future of Automated Behavior Analysis,” BC & Behavior Workshop, DBDL, Dept. of BCS, KAIST, Jan 2024.
- Invited Speaker: “Experience of a Hierarchical Relationship between a Pair of Mice Influences Social Transfer of Fear,” 50th European Brain & Behaviour Society Meeting (EBBS), Amsterdam, Aug 2023.
- Invited Speaker: “From Social Cognition to Artificial General Intelligence,” SKKU LNPO Seminar, Aug 18, 2022.
- Moderator & Presenter: “Why ‘Theoretical Framework’ Matters?: Systematic Thinking to Understand ‘How the Mind Works’ and Implement Intelligence,” KAIST NeuroAI Media Seminar, Sep 28, 2020.
Posters & Conference Presentations
- Poster: “Systematic Benchmarking of Prompt Engineering Strategies for LLM-based Emotion Recognition,” 2025 RCV Next-Generation Collaboration and Research Exchange Workshop, KAIST, Dec 29, 2025.
- Poster: “AVATAR: AI Vision Analysis for Three-Dimensional Action in Real-Time,” CV4Animals Workshop @ CVPR, Jun 2022.
- Poster: “Intrinsic and Social Factors of Empathic Response,” Francis Crick Symposium, CSHL, Suzhou, May 2019.
- Oral: “NAS-Optimized CNN for Driver Monitoring with XAI,” ETRI AI System Development Seminar, Pangyo, Oct 2018.
- Poster: “The Precision of Contextual Familiarity Memory Is Attenuated in Remote Retrieval,” Society for Neuroscience (SfN), San Diego, Nov 2013.
Honors & Awards
2026 Outstanding Poster Award — IPIU 2026 (38th Workshop on Image Processing and Image Understanding), for CLAY (co-author; poster presented by a co-author).
2024 Wiley Top Cited Article 2022–2023 — top 10 most-cited papers in Genes, Brain and Behavior (Jan 2022–Dec 2023), for the 2022 hierarchical-empathy paper.
2022 Committee Member, Convergence Division — 2022 Science-Belt Research Society Idea Concert, INNOPOLIS.
2022 Excellence Prize — Instructor & Course Designer for “Neuroscience 101,” KAIST.
2019 Excellence Prize — Ultimate Question Competition, KAIST.
2018 Grand Prize (DDSA), Encouragement Prize (ETRI) — NAS-Optimized CNN for Driver Monitoring with XAI.
2012 Grand Prize — “Neuronal Variability—Noise or Signal?” Korean Society for Computational Neuroscience.
2007 Encouragement Prize — Undergraduate Research Program (URP), KAIST.
2006 Scholarship — Department of Bio & Brain Engineering, KAIST.
Teaching & Mentorship
Jun. 2025 Workshop Instructor, “Neuro-AI Convergence: Foundation Model Workflows for Neuroscience,” DBDL, Dept. of BCS, KAIST.
Spring 2022 Instructor, “Neuroscience 101,” KAIST Global Leadership Center.
Dec. 2020 - Aug. 2022 Instructor, “Python for Neuroscientists,” CCS, IBS.
Fall 2019 - Fall 2021 Instructor, “A Small, Good Thing: Stories of Mind and Life,” KAIST Global Leadership Center.
Feb. 2012 - Oct. 2013 Supervisor, Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon in Korean-English Bilinguals (high-school mentee).
Academic Service & Leadership
2020 - Present Co-Founder & Organizer, Neureka & KAIST NeuroAI Communities — interdisciplinary seminar series featuring speakers including Prof. Peter Dayan.
Selected Grants & Projects
- Lead Researcher (Industry Partner, ACTNOVA) — Segmentation of Cognitive-Control Heterogeneity in ASD via Cross-Species Phenotyping, Brain Science Convergence (MSIT). KRW 450M/year. Apr 2024 – Present.
- Principal Investigator (ACTNOVA) — An AI System to Find Biomarkers in Behavioral Image Data (Finalist), Science-Belt R&BD Program (MSIT). KRW 475M/year. Apr 2023.
- Research Director (ACTNOVA) — Unsupervised Behavior Embedding Segmentation for Group Difference Analysis in Mice, UCSD & Broad Institute. Jun 2023 – May 2024.
- Project Lead — LLM-Powered Engine for Parental Coaching Plan Recommendation, ConnectsLab. Mar – Apr 2025.
- Project Lead (KAIST) — Assessing Empathic Abilities in Actress Bae Doona via fMRI, Actor Research Institute. Apr – Nov 2021.
Core Competencies
- AI/ML Engineering — Python, PyTorch, TensorFlow, NumPy, Pandas, LaTeX, Bash; Generative Models (VAE, Diffusion), LLMs (Prompt Engineering, HuggingFace, LangChain, PEFT); Linux, Docker, Git, MLflow, Weights & Biases, Hydra.
- Computer Vision & 3D Reconstruction — Multi-View Geometry (MVG), 3D Gaussian Splatting; Qwen-VL, Qwen-Omni (multimodal); Pose & keypoint estimation (MediaPipe, YOLO), unsupervised behavior segmentation (SUBTLE, keypoint-MoSeq).
- Neuro-AI & Cognitive Modeling — Brain-inspired cognitive architectures; analyzing neural (fMRI/EEG) and behavioral data to inform model design.
- Experimental Neuroscience — Full experimental loops: cognitive/behavioral paradigm design, targeted neural recording (single-unit), manipulation (optogenetics), analysis.
Professional Training & Certifications
Sep. 2024 - Apr. 2025 AI Bootcamp, Upstage AI Lab & FastCampus — 1st place (anomaly detection), 3rd place (RAG), scalable MLOps pipeline.
Jul. 2024 Deep Learning Course, Neuromatch Academy — multi-modal emotion recognition (tinyBERT + wav2vec).
2018 - 2021 Data Science & Production ML — CCEI (6-month Fellowship), Google Cloud, NIPA.