Looking for a postdoc position or a professorship abroad after a PhD can be challenging. Many of us start with clear wishes, such as “I want to join this research group as a postdoc and work with this professor on this topic” or “I would like to explore professorship opportunities.” Self-motivation is essential, but in many cases it is not enough.

In this talk, I will share my personal story of building an academic career in Europe after completing my PhD in South Korea. Following a brief introduction to my research on circuits and systems, I will discuss lessons learned as an early-career researcher in South Korea, Switzerland, and Finland. Many of these lessons are hard to recognize from the perspective of a student or postdoc, and they are easily overlooked. I hope this talk offers useful inspiration to students and researchers looking for a postdoc position or a professorship in Europe.

Kwantae Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronics and Nanoengineering at the School of Electrical Engineering, Aalto University. He received BSc, MSc, and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from KAIST in 2015, 2017, and 2021. Before joining Aalto, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, and an Established Researcher in the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at ETH Zurich.

His research focuses on holistic analog-digital-algorithm co-design for audio systems, biomedical sensors, and flexible chips. He is the developer of cdl_gen, an open-source Python-to-schematic generator for Cadence Virtuoso. He is a recipient of the Academy Research Fellowship from the Research Council of Finland, the UZH Postdoc Grant from the University of Zurich, the Silver Award in the Samsung HumanTech Paper Competition, and the Un Chong-Kwan Scholarship Award from KAIST. He serves on the technical program committees of IEEE CICC and IEEE AICAS. He is a member of the IEEE CASS Sensory Systems Technical Committee and contributes to IEEE SSCS Women in Circuits activities at IEEE ISSCC.

When transitioning from student to PI, the greatest lessons I learned haven’t been in circuit and system design, but in the broader elements rarely encountered in graduate school. In this talk, I will share a candid perspective on the unwritten side of the early-career journey: building a lab, cultivating a research team, navigating mentorship, and thriving under academic pressures. I will discuss what surprised me, what I underestimated, and what I realized was vital. The goal is not to present a polished blueprint, but to invite a discussion on how we can collectively design more fulfilling and resilient careers.

Jiamin Li received the B. Eng. degree and Ph. D degree in Electrical Engineering from the National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore. Since 2022, she has been with the School of Microelectronics, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), Shenzhen, China, where she is currently an Associate Professor. Her main research interests include circuits and systems design for wireless body area powering and communication, energy-efficient intelligent biomedical microsystems and neuromodulation. She is a recipient/co-recipient of the A-SSCC SDC Best/Distinguished Design Award (2024, 2025) and ISSCC Demo Award (2020). She serves on the ASSCC and ICTA TPC, the ISSCC SRP Committee, and as an Associate Editor for TVLSI.