Michelle, a Mongolian student working as an undergraduate researcher in Korea, speaks with Hankook Ilbo during an interview at a laboratory at Gachon University in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, in February. Korea Times photo by Park Ji-yeon
When Michelle, a 22-year-old student from Mongolia, came to Korea to study computer engineering, her talent did not go unnoticed for long.
A professor at Gachon University recruited her as an undergraduate researcher last winter. Soon afterward, she became the first author of an academic paper and the star of a news article taped to the laboratory door like a poster. The headline: “Third-year computer engineering student publishes first-author paper in leading Korean academic journal.”
Michelle had devised a system that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze football players’ movements, ball possession and tactical execution in broadcasts in real time. The paper appeared in a journal listed in the Korea Citation Index, a database of recognized Korean academic publications. Such journals largely receive submissions from professors and postdoctoral researchers, and papers must pass a blind review by multiple experts before being accepted.
For an undergraduate, publishing the research as its first author was a rare accomplishment. For Michelle, it meant earning recognition in the country she had chosen to study in.
