Gaang Lee, PhD

Area of Study / Keywords

Construction Built Environment Human Factors AI Psychophysiology Biosignal Processing

About

Dr. Gaang Lee joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta in 2022 after receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. His research focuses on making construction sites, buildings, and cities "sympathetic" to people so that workers and users in the surroundings can be safer, healthier, more productive and comfortable. To this end, he has been applying wearable biosensors, deep learning, adaptive signal processing, extended reality, robots, and GIS techniques and integrated them with psychophysiological and social theories, while filling important gaps in the body of knowledge in construction, computer science, and psychophysiology.

EDUCATION

Ph.D Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2022)

• Emphasis on Construction Engineering and Management; Graduate Certificate in Computational Discovery and Engineering

Graduate Certificate in Computational Discovery and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2022)

M.S. Architectural Engineering, Yonsei University, South Korea (2012)

• Emphasis on Construction Engineering and Management

B.S. Architectural Engineering, Yonsei University, South Korea (2010)

INDUSTRIAL EXPERIENCES

Manager in Corporate Technology Strategy Team and Construction Field Management Team, Samsung C&T, South Korea (2012-2016)

• Corporate BIM Strategy
• Field Engineering & Project BIM Coordination (Projects: Mongolia Shangri-la Hotel, Samsung Proton Therapy Center, Samsung Medical Center)

Consultant in BIM Team, GS E&C Consortium (2009-2010)

• BIM Application Strategy for Turn-key Projects (GangNeung Art Center, GoYang Digital Broadcast Contents Center)

Research

please visit Gaang's research group webpage.

For a list of publications, please visit Gaang's Google Scholar page.

Recruitment for Fully Funded MSc and PhD Students (Starting from Septempber 2024)

Does technology benefit all equally? Well, not really. Technology spreads unevenly; there are those who cannot easily approach technology for diverse reasons (e.g., construction/mining workers in harsh fields where technology cannot be readily deployed, seniors and other marginalized people with lack of digital competence) and from there, a new dimension of exclusion (technological exclusion) has been happening in our society. 

Attentive Hub ponders how technology can be more inclusive. Our focus is on our daily surroundings, such as workplaces, buildings, parks, roads, and sidewalks, where the colors of our lives are determined; we are deploying technologies that enables those daily surroundings to equitably attentive to all the diverse individuals’ needs and feelings so that the surroundings can be safe, healthy, comfortable, and truly inclusive. To achieve this goal, we attend to up-to-current trends in technologies, such as human sensing, AI, robots, extended reality, and digital twins, and integrate them with psychophysiological and socio-cognitive theories.

Now I am looking for students who want to join this endeavor from September 2024.

The required qualifications are:

• Empathy to humans
• Genuine desire to know and expand knowledge
• Solid motivation why she/he conducts research
• Mindset and behavior valuing diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI)
• Research, work and leadershipexperiences proving the above qualities

The examples of the research projects students will be involved in are:

• Psychophysiological monitoring for construction workers’ safety and productivity
• Trustable robots to maximize human robot collaboration performance
• Psychophysiological monitoring for equitable and inclusive built environments (cities not just smart, but empathic)
• Synergy between extended reality and biosensing in understanding/improving human experience in construction and built environments
• Psychophysiological mechanism-enhanced explainable deep learning for biosignal processing
• Synergy between digital twins and reinforcement learning for continuously updating what-if simulations

HOW TO APPLY: Please email to the hub leader, Dr. Gaang Lee (gaang@ualberta.ca) by December 1st 2023. Please put a CV with a brief explanation of why you are a right fit for Attentive Hub.

CIV E 265 - Engineering Drawing and Computer Graphics

Multiview representation, pictorial views of three-dimensional objects. Computer-aided graphics using AutoCAD.

CIV E 709 - Advanced Topics in Construction Engineering and Management

Browse more courses taught by Gaang Lee