Kisuk Kang is a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Seoul National University (SNU) and the founding director of the Institute for Rechargeable Battery Innovation (IRBI) at SNU. Launched in 2023, IRBI serves as Korea’s battery innovation hub, fostering collaboration across academia, industry, and government. Prof. Kang is a member of both the Korea Academy of Science and Technology and the National Academy of Engineering of Korea. He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2006, with a dissertation on integrating ab initio computations with experiments to design new electrode materials. After serving on the faculty at KAIST, he joined SNU in 2011 and has been a tenured professor since 2013.

Kang’s laboratory develops materials for lithium-ion batteries, post-lithium chemistries (e.g., Na and Mg), all-solid-state systems, and metal–air batteries by combining experimental studies with first-principles modeling. He has published over 400 papers—including five in Science—with more than 58,000 citations (h-index 126, as of August 2025), and he holds over 100 issued and pending patents. He has been recognized as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (2018–2022) and received honors such as the RSC Energy & Environmental Science Lectureship (2012), the Science Patriots Award (2017), and Scientist of the Month (2017). He also directs the Samsung SDI–SNU Center for Rechargeable Batteries. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Materials Research Society (USA) and currently serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society and a Reviewing Editor of Science.