By Kim Yon-se, Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporters
President-elect Lee Myung-bak will likely appoint Yoo Woo-ik, a geography professor at Seoul National University (SNU), as his chief of staff Friday, informed sources said Thursday.
In addition, Lee plans to nominate a chief policy secretary and senior presidential secretaries early next week, they said. Other secretaries and spokesman will likely be named in mid-February.
Yu, 58, has been a key advisor to Lee since before the President-elect won the Dec. 19 presidential race. He is said to be a likely assistant to design the in-land waterway project.
While working as a geography professor since 1980, he also served as an advisor to former presidents.
He was a member of the presidential committee for the 21st Century between 1989 and 1994 and secretary-general of the presidential committee for policy planning between 1994 and 1998.
When Lee served as Seoul mayor, the professor helped him set policies as a member of the advisory committee.
Yu has served as the first Asian secretary-general of the International Geographical Union (IGU) since 2006.
Europeans and Americans had previously taken the top post at the organization.
Between 2004 and 2006, he worked as vice president for the IGU.
Born in Sangju, North Gyeongsang Province, Yu currently serves as director of the Institute for Korean Regional Studies at SNU.
After earning a bachelor's and master's degrees in geography at SNU in 1971 and 1973, respectively, he received a doctorate at the University of Kiel, Germany, in 1980.
He then gave lectures as a visiting scholar to the University of California, Berkeley in the United States, and the University of Paris-Sorbonne in France.
Yu has been an honorary member of the Society of Geography, the under-graduate course union for geography at the University of Victoria in Canada, since 1996.
Since 1991, the professor has been a general advisor for the ``Korean Encyclopedia Britannica.''
He also worked as editor of the ``Encyclopedia of Korean Culture,'' and of the weekly magazine ``Future Korea.''
In recognition of his efforts for the publishing circles, he received an award from publishing businesses in 1995.