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<div class="rich-text">(This video is no longer available for streaming.) Sang-Mook Lee, a professor of marine geology and geophysics at Seoul National University, is paralyzed from the neck down. But that hasn't stopped him: He continues to teach and pursue his research on tectonic plates and the formation of the world's oceans. Outside his academic work, he also has launched a new career teaching others with disabilities and advocating for the rights of disabled people.
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A South Korean geophysicist paralyzed from the neck down defies stereotypes of the disabled.

CalTech

Seoul National University

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

<div class="rich-text">A South Korean geophysicist paralyzed from the neck down defies stereotypes of the disabled.</div>

Profile: Sang-Mook Lee

Planet Earth

<div class="rich-text"><h3>
 Profile: Sang-Mook Lee
</h3>

 PBS Airdate: September 1, 2009



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 Scientific research
is filled with challenges like will your experiment work or won't it? People
can invest years of their lives, not knowing if they'll get the payoff of a big
discovery.


 In
this episode's profile, we meet a man who met all the ordinary challenges to
become a successful researcher, and then one day, quite suddenly, was handed a
whole new set of overwhelming obstacles that his passion for science empowered
him to overcome.


 Meet
Sang-Mook Lee. Where he's from, he's known as the "Stephen Hawking of South
Korea."



 SANG-MOOK
LEE: "
 
 Sang-Mook Lee, professor of Seoul
National University, also known as Stephen Hawking of Korea." That's like a
fixed quote. Every time I'm cited, they cite like that.


 He
looks into the universe; I look into the bottom of the sea.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 Sang-Mook is an
esteemed professor at South Korea's top university, and one of the foremost
geophysicists in his country. He studies underwater volcanoes and tectonic
plates deep beneath the ocean.


 Yet,
just three years ago, he was in a near-fatal car accident that left him
paralyzed from the neck down. Many thought he would never work again.



 MIKE
GURNIS
 
 (California Institute of Technology): He was heavily sedated; he couldn't move; the machines
were keeping his lungs going, but you could just see a light in his eye and
that there was a future out there.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 He made an
impossible comeback.


 He
has since emerged as a national hero.



 KUNWOO
LEE
 
 (Seoul National University)
 
 :
 
 By showing his attitude, will become a
hope for every handicapped people.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 He credits his
return to his passion for science.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 I just love science. I knew I had to
get back because it was something I really wanted to do.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 Sang-Mook's love
for science began as a child, when he dreamt of exploring the world.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 That's when I dreamt about being a
globetrotter and going around the world at very exotic places.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 He went after this
dream. Getting a Ph.D. in geophysics from M.I.T., he began a life on the sea.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 When I returned back to Korea, I
became the marine geophysicist in Korea, and we had the ship. That was when my
science got really, really exciting, because I was the only one in charge of
this big ship. You're being like pirate.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 His research
involves studying the submarine activity of tectonic plates, those massive
slabs of rock that make up Earth's crust.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 We use indirect ways to image what is
below the seafloor, because all the records are preserved in the ocean.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 Shooting seismic
waves through the ocean floor creates a picture of what lies inside the earth.
These pictures allow him to monitor underwater earthquakes and volcanoes, and
learn more about how Earth's crust was formed.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 What I do is I study the past 200-million
years of Earth's history, to understand how Earth has behaved in the past four
and a half billion years.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 Sang-Mook hopes
that by studying the tectonic activity in uncharted regions, we might someday
be able to forecast geological disasters, like tsunamis and earthquakes.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 I looked at the map of the western
Pacific, and I tried to choose targets where nobody has gone before. I think
that is the real essence of science, discovery, like, climbing up the peak of a
mountain that nobody has gone before.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 But everything
changed on July 2, 2006, on a field trip to California, with a group of
students.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 It was toward the end of our trip,
and we were working toward Death Valley.


 I
don't remember anything, that day, nothing at all. People will tell me, "This
is what happened. This is what happened."


 "Oh,
is that so?" I don't recall anything. My van flipped, and I was crushed in the
seat.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 Sang-Mook's fourth
cervical vertebrae had been fractured, and he was in a coma.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 When I was still in coma, I knew that
I was injured. And I said, "Oh, Sang-Mook, you're in trouble." And then, I said,
"But Sang-Mook, you have been in difficult situations before, so you can come
out of this trap. Figure out what to do."



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 He awoke from his
coma after three days, paralyzed from the neck down.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 Immediately after the injury, I
worried that I wouldn't be able to work.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 And he worried
about the challenges that South Koreans with disabilities commonly face,
challenges like economic hardship and family problems. Married with three
children, Sang-Mook Lee and his family would ultimately separate, and although
financially able to
provide for his own care, he knew he would have to contend with the stigma that
so often accompanies disability, especially in South Korea.



 DAN
SHIM
 
 (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): People with disabilities are not well accepted in
this society. And they tend to hide in a shadow and, you know, they don't want
to expose themselves. Even taxi drivers will refuse to, to get you on, if you
have disability.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 In Korea, people with my level of
injury would stay in the hospital, or would shun from the society, but I was
not embarrassed to come back to my work and to try to do what I used to do.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 Using all the
technologies available, he was out of bed within a month of his accident.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 Science played a very, very important
part for me to come back after the injury. Because of my interest in science, I
just thought, "I must go back to work."



 MIKE
GURNIS:
 
 Suddenly—and
it was, it seemed like it was suddenly—now he was in motion again. He had
this chair, and he had all of the gizmos. And he could literally move the
wheelchair around, turn it, and then also use computer devices, almost
immediately, by breathing into a straw. He also could move his head back and
press a button by moving his head. I mean it was extraordinary to see this
happen so quickly.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 Just six months
later, Sang-Mook returned to teaching.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 One day, a reporter noticed me. This
reporter was from one of the major newspapers in Korea. He heard about me, but
when he saw me, it shocked him,


 and
he knew from reporter's instinct that this could be a big story. And the next
day, on March 5th, this very big newspaper in Korea ran my story on the front
page.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 The attention made
him immediately recognizable throughout his country.



 MIKE
GURNIS:
 
 As
time went on, he then assumed this greater and greater role to become a
spokesperson for disabled people within Korea.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 He now hosts his
own radio show, writes a column on disability in South Korea's biggest
newspaper, and he's written a popular book about his work in the sciences.



 WOMAN:
 
 I
was incredibly moved by your book.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 I feel very fortunate that I had an
opportunity to reevaluate myself at that moment in my life. I asked myself, "What
can I do to give back? What can I do actively to give back?"



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 Sang-Mook's biggest
project is a multimillion dollar undertaking, funded by the South Korean
government, and it's finding ways to help other handicapped South Koreans get
back in the workplace.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 Why do so many disabled students only
take the civil service exam? We need to lead more of these students to go into
computers and science.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 As part of this
program, he's working to discover and develop technologies for the handicapped,
including Korean voice recognition software and robotic limbs.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 You and I may run a shop.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 In a city where
Sang-Mook often has to bring his own ramp just to get around, there's still
lots of work to do.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 It is very difficult, you know? Basically,
we have to remodel Seoul.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 But this hasn't
stopped him. His love for science has him globetrotting once again. He recently
made his first overseas trip since his accident, to an international science
conference in San Francisco.



 MIKE
GURNIS:
 
 That
he can come to an international meeting, fly across the Pacific, interact with
his colleagues, present his scientific work, it does symbolize he is now part
of the community of scientists, once again.



 NEIL
DeGRASSE TYSON:
 
 In fact, Sang-Mook
has major research trips planned to explore underwater volcanoes in Tonga and
mid-ocean ridges in the Pacific Antarctic. And although he no longer sails the
seas himself, Sang-Mook can still be the captain of his crew.



 SANG-MOOK
LEE:
 
 Now that I'm confined to wheelchair,
I cannot go directly to those places. But nowadays with the development of
Internet, satellite communication, I'm able to participate in many of the
cruises, without going directly to sea. I can enjoy science without getting
seasick.


 Many
people heard of my story, that I was severely injured, and they doubted that I
would ever come back. But with the new programs that are opening up, they will
see a lot more of me.
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