Yonsei University
Research Exchange · YERP, Sinchon
On Wednesday 20 May 2026, our group arrived at Yonsei University — founded in 1885, one of the oldest universities in Korea, its old Christian-founded campus tucked into the heart of Sinchon, Seoul. It had been raining since morning, and by mid-afternoon the plaza and its fountain glistened under a low grey sky, umbrellas blooming everywhere we looked. But this visit was never going to be one-directional. From 3:00 to 5:30 PM, hosted by Prof. Jeon’s students at the Yonsei Engineering Research Park (YERP), the afternoon became a genuine two-way exchange — they showed us their research, and we showed them ours. Here is the rainy afternoon, in four parts.
A campus tour under umbrellas
We came into Sinchon under a steady drizzle and met our student guides at the gate, where the engraved stone sign — gold crest, 연세대학교 / YONSEI UNIVERSITY — made for the first photo of many. The rain only deepened the navy-and-grey mood of the place: traditional tiled-roof gates and hanok-style halls sitting quietly among the modern engineering buildings, the whole campus carrying its 1885 history lightly.
Founded 1885. One of Korea's oldest universities — and, by long tradition, Korea University's fiercest rival.
Our hosts walked us through it patiently, umbrellas up the entire time, before leading us in out of the wet and into a bright, dry lobby — the easy, generous start to an afternoon that never once let the weather get in the way.
Selected research talks
Settled into the seminar room, we listened as Yonsei's graduate students took the floor — around fourteen of them, from the Visual AI Lab and other groups under Prof. Jeon. A host opened with a "Selected Research Talks" slide, and the presentations came one after another: computer vision, neural rendering, and diffusion models, from early "preliminary" sketches of an idea to polished results.
The combined audience — CityU and Yonsei students side by side — filled the room. For our group, it was a vivid, close-up look at the vision and generative-AI work being done here, and a reminder of how much common ground our two departments share.
CityU introduces itself back
Then the exchange turned the other way. Our own Prof. Howard Leung stepped up to the podium for a reciprocal talk — introducing the Department of Computer Science at City University of Hong Kong, the city we'd flown in from, and the research and rankings that define our home department.
It was the moment the afternoon felt truly mutual: not a delegation being hosted, but two computer-science communities trading notes. Slides on the department, on Hong Kong, on where CityU CS stands in the world — our half of a conversation that had, until then, been all theirs.
Souvenirs, both ways
As the talks wound down, gifts crossed the room in both directions. Faculty exchanged souvenirs first — a colourful gift box handed over with thanks — and then the students followed, swapping keepsakes in the glass atrium, right in front of the very slides they'd just presented: a diffusion-model result here, a rendering figure there.
It was a fitting close to a two-way afternoon. Whatever the rain had done outside, inside YERP the warmth ran in both directions — gratitude between two sides who had each, for a few hours, been both host and guest.
New ideas, new friends, and a department on the other side of the same problems we work on — that was Yonsei, rain and all. We said our thank-yous, gathered our umbrellas, and headed off to dinner with the Yonsei students at a Korean restaurant just off campus.