Woo Kyung-sik, a member of the National Heritage Committee, was elected president of the International Union of Speleology at its 16th Congress in Brno, the Czech Republic, on Sunday, the Cultural Heritage Administration said Monday.

With the election, the 57-year-old will lead the member organization of the International Council for Science for four years.

The council is in a close relationship with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which is the advisory body to the World Heritage Committee. 

The World Heritage Committee has the most influence on UNESCO’s designation of natural heritage, and Woo is expected to help strengthen Korea’s international network regarding heritage designations of the country’s nature.

Woo is a professor of geology at Kangwon National University in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province.

Woo graduated from Seoul National University, earned a master’s degree from Texas A&M University, and a doctoral degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

He is the first Asian to be elected president of the union.

Union International Speleology is an international academic body formed in 1965 to promote interaction between academic and technical speleologists, people who study caves.

Its voting members consist of a delegate from each member country representing the cavers and speleologists of that country, rather than any of the official national bodies.

It has thousands of delegates from 61 member countries.

By Chun Sung-woo (swchun@heraldcorp.com)