Naver recruits two AI scholars based in US

Naver Corp. is ramping up its recruitment of global talent in artificial intelligence. 

The South Korean tech giant announced Monday that it hired Yoon Kim,  Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT,) and Karl Stratos, Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at Rutgers University as Naver Scholars. 

Naver Scholars maintain their existing academic and research posts in the United States and Europe while leading service developments at Naver Search CIC in the United States. 
 
Kim and Stratos are both in their 30s. Local media reports say the recent hires reflect Naver’s willingness to do away with age-based hierarchy common in Korean corporate settings.

Born in 1987, Kim received his doctorate in Computer Science from Harvard University, a master's in Data Science from New York University, an MA in Statistics from Columbia University, and dual bachelor's in Mathematics and Economics from Cornell University. He currently teaches natural language processing and machine learning at MIT. 

In 2014, the 35-year-old published a research paper on incorporating a deep learning technology dubbed Convolution Neural Network into natural language processing (NLP.)

The paper was cited more than 12,000 times around the globe. 

Kim’s Character-Aware language model and OpenNMT (Neural Machine Translation) were widely adopted in the industry and are highly regarded by industry experts.

Stratos received his doctorate in Computer Science from Columbia University. After that, he served as senior research scientist at Bloomberg LP and as an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University.

Born in 1988, Stratos serves as a chair at multiple academic societies such as The Association for Computational Linguistics and The Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing.

Stratos, whose legal name is Jang Sun Lee, is a recipient of a number of awards in the field of NLP, including the prestigious Google Faculty Research Award. While at Bloomberg, he led a team of research scientists that incorporated deep learning technology into the company's natural language understanding (NLU) products.

Last September, Naver launched Naver Search CIC in the US and has been focusing its efforts on hiring global talent. The company appointed Kim Young-Bum, an expert in conversational AI, as head of Applied Science and Executive Director of the US R&D at Naver Search CIC. 

Kim is a renowned AI expert who used to oversee the development of virtual assistant Cortana at Microsoft Corp. and its rival Alexa at Amazon.com, Inc. The newly hired professors will jointly lead the limited company along with Kim Young-Bum.

“We plan to continue actively recruiting quality talent in the global arena such as the US and Europe this year,” said Kim Kwang-hyun who oversees the Naver Search CIC.

Utilizing the new talents, Naver aspires to advance the sophistication of its AI-based research products. 

In October 2021, Naver launched an AI-based research system dubbed AiRSearch  to upgrade its two-decade-old integrated search system.

The development came in response to a growing number of users going online to not only search for answers but to explore their interests, the company explained. According to the South Korean tech giant, 65% of its entire search words are exploration-type.

The new AI-based search system provides users with blocks of texts that offer customized results based on current trends and individual interests. 

A search for a bed and breakfast for example, would offer smart blocks like a to-do list for an overnight stay, transportation, and other relavant information based on the user's personal information such as gender and age.

Last year, 15% of total search on Naver was conducted via AiRSearch. The company plans to expand that percentage to 30% by the end of the year. 

A Naver employee familiar with the development said Naver will strengthen AI research and development led by global talents.

“The relevant technology will not only be incorporated into the general search but also to Naver’s other service areas such as specialized search for online shopping and recommending webtoons,” the employee added.

Write to Min-Ki Koo at kook@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.