Beauty Queen-Scientist Wins UNESCO Award
By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
Keum Na-na, winner of the 2002 Miss Korea Pageant, won the 2007 L'Oreal-UNESCO Awards For Women in Science (FWIS) on Tuesday.
The FWIS is given to female scientists to support their research in life sciences every year. It was inaugurated in 2000.
The awards are allocated to women researchers in life sciences at the doctoral or post-doctoral level, whose promising projects have been accepted by a reputable institution outside their home country.
The 25-year-old Keum made headlines when she was accepted to both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in the United States after winning the Miss Korea title when she was a student of Kyungpook National University's medical school.
According to the Women's Bioscience Forum in Korea which hosts the awards, she was awarded because of her willingness to give up making the most of her beauty and instead take the more difficult career path as a female scientist. Her decision to promote Korean science was highly praised.
She also received a full scholarship sponsored by Samsung Electronics.
Keum was born in Yeongju, North Gyeongsang Province in 1983.