Biography:

Sungmin Pak is a postdoctoral research associate whose research interests lie in space instruments, energetic particle transport, and radiation effects. His interdisciplinary background spans space payloads, particle physics, radiation biology, and numerical simulations. Sungmin has conducted Monte Carlo simulations to study space particle interactions with various instruments and human models for both crewed and uncrewed space exploration. As a part of his B.S. and M.S. programs, he contributed to the Geo-Kompsat-2A (GK2A) Korean Space Environment Monitor (KSEM) Particle Detector (PD) development project, analyzing the detector’s response to omnidirectional proton and electron fluxes in geostationary orbit. For his Ph.D., Sungmin focused on evaluating the effective dose and organ dose equivalents of primary and secondary particles in interplanetary space, on the lunar surface, and on the Martian surface for astronauts participating in upcoming lunar and Mars missions. In addition to his research, Sungmin served as a graduate teaching assistant in the Department of Health Physics and Diagnostic Sciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he mentored undergraduate students in radiation biology. At Princeton University, Sungmin is involved in analyzing energetic particle data from the Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun (ISʘIS) instruments on the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) mission.