BIOGRAPHY

Youchan Yim is a Specially Appointed Assistant Professor (ITF) at the Institute of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba. He received his B.E., M.Eng., and Ph.D. degrees in Engineering from the University of Tsukuba, where he was affiliated with the Fumihide Tanaka Laboratory from 2015 to 2025. During his undergraduate studies, he was selected as a government-funded scholar through the Korea-Japan Joint Government Scholarship Program. He was awarded the Rotary Yoneyama Memorial Foundation Scholarship during his master's program and received the JST SPRING Fellowship as a Ph.D. student.

His research focuses on developing sensory intervention technologies—particularly using tactile and visual modalities—to alleviate pain, stress, and other negative states, with the aim of enhancing human well-being. His doctoral work explored affective touch interaction with an inflatable wearable robot that physically expands to simulate hand-holding, and examined the pain-reducing effects of the Proteus effect in virtual reality. In addition to these studies, he has developed various devices and systems that provide tactile and visual feedback. He is currently investigating cyber-physical systems that deliver multisensory (tactile and visual) feedback simultaneously in both physical and virtual spaces.

In 2021, he received the Best Student Robot Design Award at the ACM/IEEE HRI Student Design Competition. Upon completing his Ph.D., he was also honored with the Dean's Award from the University of Tsukuba.

WORK EXPERIENCE

Apr. 2025 - Present

Assistant Professor (ITF, Specially Appointed)

Institute of Systems and Information Engineering

University of Tsukuba

Apr. 2021 - Mar. 2022

Part-time Researcher

Institute of Systems and Information Engineering

University of Tsukuba

EDUCATION

Apr. 2022 - Mar. 2025

Ph.D. in Engineering

Graduate School of Science and Technology

Degree Programs in Systems and Information Engineering

University of Tsukuba

Apr. 2019 - Mar. 2021

M.Eng.

Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering

Department of Intelligent Interaction Technologies

University of Tsukuba

Apr. 2015 - Mar. 2019

B.Eng.

College of Engineering Systems

School of Science and Engineering

University of Tsukuba

FELLOWSHIPS & SCHOLARSHIPS

Apr. 2023 - Mar. 2025

JST SPRING Fellowship

Apr. 2020 - Mar. 2021

Rotary Yoneyama Memorial Foundation

Apr. 2019 - Mar. 2020

The Korean Scholarship Foundation

Mar. 2014 - Mar. 2019

Korea-Japan Joint Government Scholarship Program