Jun-Muk Hwang

Jun-Muk Hwang (born 27 October 1963) is a South Korean mathematician, specializing in algebraic geometry and complex differential geometry.

Personal life
Hwang is the eldest son of gayageum musician Hwang Byungki and novelist Han Malsook.

Education and career
Hwang studied physics at Seoul National University for his bachelors before studying physics at Harvard University. In 1993, he completed his PhD under the direction of Yum-Tong Siu with thesis  Global nondeformability of the complex hyper quadric. In the following years he held positions at the University of Notre Dame, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, and Seoul National University. Since 1999, he was a professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study. He was in 2006 an invited speaker with talk Rigidity of rational homogeneous spaces at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in Madrid and in 2014 a plenary speaker with talk Mori geometry meets Cartan geometry: Varieties of minimal rational tangents at the ICM in Seoul.

"With his collaborator Ngaiming Mok, he has developed the theory of varieties of minimal rational tangents, which combines methods of algebraic geometry and differential geometry in the study of rational curves on algebraic varieties. He has applied this theory to settle a number of problems on algebraic varieties covered by rational curves."

In 2020, he was the founding director of the Center for Complex Geometry at the Institute for Basic Science. In 2023, he was selected to be on the committee for the Abel Prize.

Awards and honors

 * 2021: National Academy of Sciences Award, National Academy of Sciences, South Korea
 * 2012: Fellow, American Mathematical Society
 * 2010: National Scientist of the Republic of Korea, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology
 * 2009: Ho-Am Prize in Science, Am Prize, The Ho Am Foundation
 * 2007: Fellow, Korean Academy of Science and Technology
 * 2006: Top Scientist and Technologist Award of Korea, Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies (ko)
 * 2006: Scientist of the Year Award, Korean National Assembly
 * 2001: Korea Science Award, Ministry of Science and Technology
 * 2000: Award for Excellent Article, Korean Mathematical Society