Official Story
Woo-Young (Young) Ahn is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Seoul National University (September 2019 - Present; Assistant Professor from September 2017 to August 2019). He was previously an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and an affiliated faculty at Translational Data Analytics at The Ohio State University (August 2015 – August 2017). He earned his B.S. in materials science & engineering in 2002 from Seoul National University and then went to Harvard University as a doctoral candidate for applied physics and received his S.M. in applied physics in 2003. Due to his interests in the human mind, he decided to change his major to clinical psychology so that he could study the human mind from multiple perspectives. He continued on to receive his M.A. in clinical psychology from Seoul National University in 2006, and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Indiana University, Bloomington in August 2012 co-advised by Jerome Busemeyer and Brian O'Donnell. He completed his (APA accredited) clinical psychology internship at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in June 2012. He worked then as a postdoc with Read Montague and Peter Dayan for two years at Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute (VTCRI) and for a year at Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies.
Unofficial Story
Woo-Young grew up in Seoul, Korea, "naively" thinking he would become a scientist after getting his PhD in engineering. He had no serious interest in the human mind until he joined the army after finishing his junior year at Seoul National University (SNU) to fulfill his mandatory military service. Experience in the military often made him wonder why we think and behave in a certain way, especially under stress or conflict of interest. He was released from the army after 26 months of military service and became seriously interested in religion and read many books on the topic. At the same time, he took GRE and TOEFL to apply for PhD programs in engineering in the US. He was not sure if doing a PhD in engineering was a right choice, but still applied for PhD programs and received admissions from his top choices and things went very smoothly. He went to Harvard to do his PhD in applied physics but it was hard to focus on his study during his PhD. He realized that he wasn't really thinking about his major (e.g., semiconductors, nano materials) but his interests are more on the human mind and related topics. After meeting several people in the Boston area and reading books in psychology, he thought maybe clinical psychology was the field he was looking for. However, he took no course in psychology in college and had no relevant background, so switching to psychology right away from applied physics was impossible. So, after completing coursework for a year in applied physics, he decided to take a leave of absence and go back to Korea to pursue a master in psychology in Korea although his parents were not supportive of his decision. Thankfully, he got accepted into a master's program in psychology at SNU because his advisor somehow thought he might have some potential in psychology (he still thanks his master advisor a lot for the decision). Psychology was very different from engineering and he struggled but could finish his master's degree and applied for PhD programs in the US again, but this time in clinical psychology. It was extremely difficult for him to get into a PhD program in clinical psychology - he had just one phone interview (Indiana University (IU), Bloomington) and initially got rejection letters from every school. Somehow "miraculously", the IU Psychology program revoked the rejection letter and gave him an admission. Graduate life at IU was overall really great but getting training in clinical psychology as a non-native speaker in English was very challenging. Still, he was very fortunate to have met great mentors and clients/patients who helped him grow up as a clinical psychologist. After his PhD, he did two postdocs (transition to the second postdoc was rough) and went to a job market. Getting a first tenure-track faculty position was extremely hard but luckily The Ohio State University (OSU) gave him a dream job. He thought he would be at OSU for many years but things didn't go as planned and he moved to SNU in Seoul, Korea in 2017 with his family. Reflecting his life. he thinks life is full of so much uncertainty, and his carefully laid plans almost always go awry. He changed his career to have a (more) meaningful life but is still searching for his meaning.