Yongjeong Oh (Ph.D. candidate) from the Department of Electrical Engineering at POSTECH (Advisor: Prof. Yosep Jeon) received the Bronze Prize in the Communication & Networks category at the 32nd Samsung Humantech Paper Awards, hosted by Samsung Electronics.

The award-winning paper, titled “Towards Optimal Semantic Communications: From Enc-Dec Design to Target Channel Characterization,” redefines semantic communication systems using an Encoder–Target Channel–Decoder architecture and proposes a new design perspective that overcomes the limitations of conventional encoder–decoder–centric approaches. In particular, the research introduces a framework that optimizes the target channel itself to maximize task performance under limited communication resources, demonstrating outstanding performance across a variety of semantic communication scenarios.

The Samsung Humantech Paper Awards, organized by Samsung Electronics and jointly supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT and JoongAng Ilbo, are among the largest and most prestigious academic paper competitions in Korea. Established in 1994, the awards aim to discover and foster outstanding talent in science and technology.