Professor

Prof. SangHyun Lee Headshot

Prof. SangHyun Lee, PhD, F.ASCE, NAC 

Professor and John L. Tishman Faculty Scholar
Associate Department Chair of Research
Founder and CTO of Kinetica Labs, Inc.
Scientific Advisor of VelocityEHS
Director of UM Construction Industry Alliance Program
Distinguished Visiting Professor, Hangyang University, Korea
Affiliated Faculty in Michigan Robotics
Affiliated Faculty in Energy Institute
Affiliated Faculty in Graham Sustainability Institute
Affiliated Faculty in Michigan Institute of Computational Discovery and Engineering

Short Bio

Prof. Lee’s research interest centers around empathetic construction and infrastructure management to achieve max performance from technologies like wearables, robotics, and automation for human. Prof. Lee earned his PhD and MSc from MIT and BE from Dong-A University, Korea. Before he joined UM at 2010, he taught at MIT and the University of Alberta, Canada. He also worked as a consultant at CRA International. He is an entrepreneur who successfully launched Kinetica Labs, Inc. that provides sensorless motion capture for ergonomic risk assessment, which was acquired by VelocityEHS where he is a Machine Learning Scientist now. He is also an elected member of the National Academy of Construction and an ASCE Fellow. He has received numerous awards such as the ASCE Daniel W. Halpin Award for Scholarship in Construction, ASCE Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize, FIATECH Outstanding Early Career Researcher Award, CII Distinguished Professor Award, CSCE Stephan G. Revay Award, UM Henry Russel Award (the highest honor UM bestows upon junior faculty), CEEFA Faculty Award, Tom Waters Award, the Rackham Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award, and the UM College of Engineering Service Excellence Award among others. His also received ten best paper awards including the ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering best paper awards (twice: 2014 and 2018, respectively). He has assumed many leadership roles; he was Chair of ASCE Construction Research Council, Chair of ASCE Visualization, Information Modeling and Simulation Committee, and Board of Governor at ASCE Construction Institute among others. He has five editorialships in leading journals like the ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management and the ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering. He believes passion beats natural talent and loves cats.