Prof. Dr. Sukit Limpijumnong
President
Professor Sukit Limpijumnong received a scholarship, Development and Promotion of Science and Technology Talents Project (DPST) scholarship, from the Thai government since high school. He received Ph.D. in Physics with specialization on computation materials from Case Western Reserve University, USA and did postdoctoral trainings at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in Silicon Valley, USA.
In 2001, Prof. Limpijumnong started his teaching career at Suranaree University of Technology and become a full professor of physics in Thailand at the age of 34. He also performed many short-term research visits as a visiting professor in many world-renowned computational material labs such as National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
Prof. Limpijumnong was a vice rector of Suranaree University of Technology for 8 years and a director of Research Center for Computation and Theory of Thailand Center of Excellence in Physics (ThEP Center) for 9 years where he and colleagues conducted numerous impactful frontier research on computational materials on metal oxides and nanostructure solids. He has over 100 ISI indexed publications with H-index of 36 and over 5,700 citations. His life-time achievements were recognized by many national and international bodies, for examples, National Outstanding Researcher Award (2011) and TWAS Prize for Young Scientists (2004).
In 2018, Prof. Limpijumnong was appointed as the president of the Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology (IPST), a state-run organization in charge of developing and research of curricula, teaching and learning techniques and evaluation in sciences, mathematics and technology at all education levels with focus on basic education of Thailand, professional development of teachers in science, mathematics and technology, raising and evaluating scientific literacy of the next generation of Thai citizens, and promote as well as support Thai talented sciences, mathematics and technology students and teachers to participate in national and international promotion projects. During the pose of IPST President, Prof. Limpijumnong has initiated several impactful projects on Thai education such as development textbooks and teacher's guides and implement computing science curriculum or “Coding” for all educational levels in basic education, digital transformation of textbooks according to COVID-19 pandemic called “Project 14”, Japan-Thailand collaboration project, Training and Development Project in Engineering, Technology and Innovation to Support the Investment and Enhance National and Regional Industrial Capabilities (Thai KOSEN Project), for establishing Japanese-style colleges of technology in Thailand to Support investment and increase industrial capacity in the country and region.
In 2022, Prof. Limpijumnong was appointed as President of the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA).