CPULD’s Saewhan Kim wins H.E. Burkhart Outstanding Masters Student award

CPULD is proud to announce that our graduate student, Saewhan Kim. was awarded the H. E. Burkhart Outstanding Masters Student award for 2022. At the time of his award, Saewhan was pursuing an M.S. degree in Forestry and Forest Products. His major professor, Dr. Laszlo Horvath, told us that he “has had the chance to work with Saewhan since 2020 when he was accepted into the graduate program in my department. His research focuses on understanding and investigating the environmental impacts of a novel unit load design method that uses the stiffness of a pallet top deck to optimize the corrugated box design. The results will be built into a commercial computer software which will allow companies to reduce the amount of corrugated board needed by designing boxes and pallets holistically.”

In addition to his own research, Saewhan has been working at the Center for Packaging and Unit Load

Design two days a week as a Graduate Laboratory Manager for the pallet lab. He has been responsible for ensuring that our testing and design projects are completed on time and with the required accuracy. Saewhan has also mentored five undergraduate students through their senior design projects. And he is already actively involved in the packaging community. Saewhan has been a member of the International Safe Transit Association (ISTA) since his first year at Virginia Tech. And, he also successfully obtained two major industry certifications: ISTA CPLP Technician and Technologist levels, which are generally reserved for industry professionals with multiple years of experience.

Dr. Horvath told us that Saewhan’s “research progress is exceptional. He already has two conference proceedings and two conference presentations. In addition, he has one peer-reviewed article published and two under preparation. He is a natural leader and a great mentor for undergraduate students. Based on his academic and research performance, I would categorize him into the top 5% of students I had a chance to work with.”

Due to his outstanding research, Saewhan was accepted to continue his studies as a Ph.D. student under DR. Horvath’s mentorship, working towards achieving his final goal of being a faculty member in a major research university.