Albert Yu-Min Lin: Valley of the Khans Project.
Dr. Albert Yu-Min Lin is a Research Scientist and an Emerging Explorer of the National Geographic Society in the field of technology enabled exploration. He founded and co-Directs the UC San Diego, National Geographic Engineers for Exploration Programme and currently leads a major international effort known as the ‘Valley of the Khans Project’.
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ABOUT Albert Yu-Min Lin
“Dr. Albert Yu-Min Lin is a research scientist at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Science in Art, Architecture and Archaeology within the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology at UC San Diego. He has been driven by a pursuit of anthropological discovery.
He he spent every summer traveling to the far reaches of the world, to locations such as Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Pakistan, Mongolia, and the Central, Eastern, Southern and Northern stretches of China. After completing his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering and inspired by the words of a mentor he chose to chase his passion.
“If we progress forward with technology but forget why we do so, we will inevitably lose what makes us human. Progress should fuel humanity not leave it behind.” From this, he chose to use his degree in engineering to explore the elements of our humanity, to apply technology toward the understanding, preservation and sustainable development of the developing world.”
As Principal Investigator of the ‘Valley of the Khans Project’, a non-invasive technology based search for the tomb of Genghis Khan, Dr. Lin has lead multiple high-tech expeditions deep into the most remote parts of the world, developed innovative platforms for remote sensing and has pioneered new methods for massive data analysis through crowdsourcing.
The goal of this effort, to enable international protection of a sacred region of Mongolia through non-destructive investigation, has earned him recognition as National Geographic Adventure Magazine’s ‘2010 Readers Choice Adventurer of the Year’ and a Fellow National of the prestigious Explorers Club.
Dr. Lin is an avid rock climber, surfer, mountaineer, photographer, sailor, and traveller. His Chinese name (Yu-Min) roughly translates to Citizen of the Universe”.
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