Imaging Intelligence LaboratorySeoul National University
Imaging Intelligence LaboratorySeoul National University

seungahlee@snu.ac.kr
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National University
Portrait of Professor Seung Ah Lee

Group Leader, Imaging Intelligence Laboratory

Seung Ah Lee 이승아

Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National University

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Biography

Seung Ah Lee is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Seoul National University. She works on computational imaging: microscopes, cameras, and optical metrology and inspection systems whose optics and AI-based image reconstruction are designed together. She received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering and M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Seoul National University and her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Caltech, and was a faculty member in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Yonsei University (2018–2025).

Her Ph.D. work at Caltech (2014) was on chip-scale lensless microscopy. She was then a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University and at Google X, and a scientist at Verily Life Sciences (2016–2018).

Her group's current work includes Fourier ptychographic and polarization microscopy, label-free virtual staining for pathology, lensless cameras with fabricated phase masks, rolling-shutter speckle imaging of blood flow, and optical inspection and metrology for semiconductors. She is an Associate Editor of Optics Express and Advanced Imaging, and received the Commendation of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT (Science Day 2026).

Her professional service includes General Chair of the Computational Optical Sensing and Imaging (COSI) conference at the Optica Imaging Congress (2024, 2025), Conference Co-chair at SPIE Photonics West (2024–2026) and Director of International Affairs of the Optical Society of Korea.

Research interests

  • Computational imaging and microscopy
  • Biophotonics and in vivo imaging
  • AI for computational imaging and imaging-system design
  • Low-cost imaging systems

Current research in the laboratory

Education

  1. 2014

    Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering

    California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

    Advisor: Prof. Changhuei Yang

  2. 2009

    M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Seoul National University

    Advisor: Prof. Sunghoon Kwon

  3. 2007

    B.S. in Electrical Engineering

    Seoul National University

Appointments

  1. 2025–

    Associate Professor

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National University

  2. 2023–2025

    Associate Professor

    School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University

  3. 2018–2023

    Assistant Professor

    School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University

  4. 2016–2018

    Scientist

    Verily Life Sciences (Alphabet Inc.)

  5. 2015–2016

    Postdoctoral Associate

    Google X

  6. 2014–2015

    Postdoctoral Associate

    Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University

    Advisor: Prof. Ingmar H. Riedel-Kruse

Professional service

Editorial

  • Associate Editor

    Optics Express (Optica Publishing Group)

    2024–

  • Associate Editor

    Advanced Imaging

    2024–

Conference organization

  • Optica Imaging Congress

    Computational Optical Sensing and Imaging (COSI): General Chair (2024, 2025), Program Chair (2023)

    2023–2025

  • SPIE Photonics West

    Computational Optical Imaging and Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Sciences: Conference Co-chair

    2024–2026

  • SPIE–OSK Advanced Biophotonics Conference

    Technical Program Chair

    2025

Societies and advisory roles

  • Director of International Affairs

    Optical Society of Korea

    2024–

  • Director of General Affairs

    Optical Society of Korea

    2023

  • Public Relations and Information Committee

    Korean Biochip Society

    2023, 2024

  • Scientific Advisory Board

    Noul Co., Ltd.

    2023–2024

Technical program committees

CLEO 2024; IEEE International Conference on Computational Photography 2023; IEEE/IEIE ICEIC 2023, 2024; OSK Advanced Biophotonics Conference 2022–2024; IEEE/IEIE ICCE-Asia 2020, 2021

Honors and awards

  1. 2026Commendation of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT (Science Day 2026)
  2. 2025Young Engineer's Award, Korean Society of Precision Engineering
  3. 2023Teaching Excellence Award, Yonsei University
  4. 2023LG Electronics Target Lab
  5. 2022Outstanding Article Award, Frontiers in Computer Science, for “Micro-HBI: Human-Biology Interaction With Living Cells, Viruses, and Molecules”
  6. 2018Microsoft Research Asia Collaborative Research Award

Contact

Phone
+82-2-880-7153
Office
Bldg. 301 Rm. 1503
Laboratory
Bldg. 302 Rm. 411A
Address
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Korea

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