Jongho Park

About Me

I am currently an assistant professor at the Department of Astronomy and Space Science at Kyung Hee University (KHU). Prior to joining KHU, I held positions at the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) in Taiwan. Additionally, I am an active member of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration.

I specialize in the study of supermassive black holes and relativistic jets within active galactic nuclei (AGN), with a particular focus on the nearby giant radio galaxy M87. My research involves the application of very long baseline interferometric (VLBI) techniques to investigate the mechanisms responsible for launching, collimating, and accelerating these jets to relativistic speeds. Additionally, I am deeply engaged in the calibration and imaging of VLBI data and have developed a novel calibration pipeline known as GPCAL designed to eliminate artificially generated signals in VLBI data. Leveraging this expertise, I made a significant contribution to the first polarized image captured around a black hole, which was released by the EHT collaboration in March 2021.

My current research endeavors revolve around three main areas of interest:

(i) Developing calibration tools tailored for VLBI data (link), (ii) Unveiling the magnetic field structure within AGN jets. (link), (iii) Enhancing our understanding of the processes involved in collimating and accelerating jets within AGN (link).

I was born in Seoul, Republic of Korea, and completed my undergraduate education at Seoul National University (SNU), where I received a B.S. in Astronomy in 2013. My academic journey continued at SNU, leading to the successful completion of my Ph.D. in Astronomy in 2019 under the supervision of Prof. Sascha Trippe. Subsequently, I pursued a career in research, commencing as a postdoctoral fellow at ASIAA in 2019, followed by a position as an EACOA fellow from 2020 to 2022. During this period, I was actively involved in the Greenland Telescope (GLT) project, collaborating closely with Dr. Keiichi Asada and Dr. Masanori Nakamura. In 2022, I achieved tenure as a scientist at KASI and have been a member of the KHU faculty since 2023. Currently, my primary research focus revolves around the study of AGN jets and supermassive black holes, with a specific emphasis on utilizing global millimeter VLBI arrays such as the EHT and GMVA.

I am delighted to share a photo from the public outreach talk held at Gwacheon Science Museum, where I presented how to interpret the results of the supermassive black hole imaging with the EHT. There were about 250 people attending the talk, many of whom are elementary and junior high school students, who will be the next-generation scientists in Korea.