Professor Yong Sik Ok is a Full Professor in the Division of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering at Korea University and President of the International ESG Association. He has been ranked as the world’s No. 1 environmental scientist by multiple global evaluation bodies, including ScholarGPS. His research spans climate change, soil biodiversity, and ESG management, conducted through a highly interdisciplinary approach. He has authored landmark publications in leading journals including Nature, Science, Nature Water, Matter (Cell Press), Nature Sustainability, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, Nature Protocols, Nature Reviews Bioengineering, and Environmental Science & Technology. In 2019, he became the first Korean scholar to be named a Highly Cited Researcher (HCR) in the field of environmental ecology. In 2022, he achieved a world-first distinction by being simultaneously recognized as an HCR across environmental ecology, engineering, and biology/biochemistry.
Professor Ok previously served as President of the U.S.-based international society International Society of Trace Element Biogeochemistry (ISTEB). As Program Director of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), he has led large-scale international research initiatives addressing global environmental challenges in collaboration with the world’s top universities, including Stanford University. He is also the Korean partner of the Planetary Health Alliance (PHA), the world’s largest academic–policy collaboration launched at Harvard University and has spearheaded the establishment of the Korea headquarters of the Climate Governance Initiative in partnership with the University of Cambridge and Deloitte.
Currently, Professor Ok focuses on translating ESG management and sustainability science into corporate strategy and public policy. He has delivered ESG strategy lectures and provided executive advisory services to CEOs and CFOs of major global corporations, including Shinhan Financial Group, Samsung Electronics, LG, and POSCO. At Korea University Business School, he founded MBA and EMBA courses titled “Business and the Environment,” contributing to the training of next-generation ESG leaders. He also leads national-level research to establish ESG evaluation criteria and methodologies for Korea’s top 200 corporations.
Through extensive international collaborations, Professor Ok is conducting large-scale field research on biochar-based climate change mitigation technologies and solutions to plastic pollution. In collaboration with Stanford University, he recently developed ESG evaluation indicators related to corporate water use for leading global companies, with the results accepted in Nature Water. His work exemplifies integrative scholarship bridging science and engineering with the humanities and social sciences.
Professor Ok has accumulated over 133,750 citations, with an h-index of 188, and has received more than 105 Highly Cited Papers (HCPs). His annual citation rate has exceeded 20,000 citations per year consistently over the past four years (2022–2025), underscoring his sustained global impact and leadership in environmental and sustainability science.
