June 2005

Commencement 2004

Christopher Hill and Robert Laughlin Address Seoul Graduates

By Chip Cassano

Graduates who marched in UMUC’s May 15, 2005, commencement ceremony in Seoul, Korea, were treated to addresses by Nobel laureate Robert B. Laughlin, president of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, one of South Korea’s top technology universities, and Christopher R. Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.

Robert B. Laughlin

Laughlin is the first non-Korean and first Nobel laureate to head the prestigious Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. He shared the 1998 Nobel prize in physics—with Horst Stoermer of Germany and Daniel Tsui of the Unites States—for advancing the understanding of a phenomenon in quantum mechanics known as the fractional quantum Hall effect.

A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Laughlin completed a tour of service in the U.S. Army before enrolling in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a PhD in physics. He then joined Bell Labs, where he and two colleagues conducted the research that would later earn them the Nobel prize. He held subsequent positions as a research physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and as a professor at Stanford University. He currently holds the positions at Stanford of professor of physics, professor of applied physics, and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass professor of humanities and sciences.

	Christopher R. Hill

Hill, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, served most recently as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Korea. He was sworn in as assistant secretary of state on April 8, 2005.

In his address, Hill spoke from experience gained in a distinguished and varied career. He has served as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Macedonia and later to Poland, and as a special envoy to Kosovo. In February 2005, he was called to head the U.S. delegation to the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue.

Earlier in his career, he served embassy tours in Belgrade, Warsaw, Seoul, and Tirana, and worked on the Department of States’ policy planning staff. He was awarded a fellowship from the American Political Science Association and worked as a staff member in the offices of Congressman Stephen Solarz. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Hill served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon.

Hill won the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award for his contributions to negotiations in the Bosnia peace settlement and received the Robert S. Frasure Award for Peace Negotiations for his work on the Kosovo crisis.

A graduate of Bowdoin College, Hill received his master’s degree from the Naval War College. He speaks Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, and Albanian.

Both Laughlin and Hill received honorary doctorates from UMUC in recognition of their accomplishments and service.