Mentors

Juhyun Lee, Ph.D., is currently an assistant professor of Bioengineering at UTA. Juhyun completed his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Utah in 2010. He then attended USC and UCLA as a Master’s and Ph.D. Bioengineering student, respectively. After finishing his academic training, he worked as a biomedical engineer at Edward Lifesciences specializing in artificial heart valves and hemodynamic monitoring device. His research focuses on developing a novel microscopy system to study cardiac development by analyzing biomechanical effects. His research is supported from multiple American Heart Association and National Science Foundation.

Dr. Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). She received her B.Sc. (2000) and M.Sc (2003) in Applied Biology at Dongguk University and Ph.D. in Kyunghee University School of Medicine (2006). She has trained as a postdoctoral fellow and instructor at the Burke Medical Research Institute of Weill Cornell Medicine (White Plains, NY). With her expertise in neurobiology/neuroscience, she joined UTHealth in October 2017 and established her cerebrovascular research laboratory. She mainly focuses on understanding pathophysiology in stroke and brain arteriovenous malformations (bAVMs). She has several publications in high-impact journals in the field including, Annals of Neurology, Journal of Neuroscience, and Stroke. In addition, one of her projects has been for Stroke Basic Science Award at the 2022 AHA International Stroke Conference.

Dr. Myoungkyu Lee is an assistant professor at The University of Alabama in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 2015 from the University of Texas at Austin. Subsequently, He served as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Computational Engineering and Science (ICES) at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2018, he moved to Combustion Research Facilities in Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore. In Sandia National Labs, he studied the combustion processes in strong thermal nonequilibrium in molecules until joining the University of Alabama. His research interests include high-performance computing, flows with thermal and chemical nonequilibrium, and direct numerical simulations of wall-bounded turbulent flows and reactive flows.

I have always been interested in developmental biology and cell plasticity. The ability of cells to adapt and make fate choices in response to intrinsic and extrinsic cues is a fundamental question in biology that deeply fascinates me. During my master’s degree, I developed an anticancer therapy using a VEGF-A promoter targeted artificial transcription factor and oncolytic adenovirus. This work drove my interest towards the field of transcriptional regulation and led me to study, for my Ph.D. research at the laboratory of Dr. Emery Bresnick, several novel pathways by which the GATA transcription factors regulate erythropoiesis. While investigating erythrocyte maturation, I became interested in the mechanisms controlling hematopoietic cell fate, which prompted me to study hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and to join the laboratory of Dr. Emmanuelle Passegué for my postdoctoral training. In her laboratory, I investigated the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which HSCs commit to myeloid differentiation and regulate the production of granulocytes and macrophage in normal and deregulated contexts such as myeloid malignancies and inflammation. My recent discovery of distinct subsets of granulocyte/macrophage (G/M)-biased multipotent progenitor (MPP) MPP3 with differential lineage potential provides me with unique opportunities to delve into the lineage specification mechanisms in HSC and MPP levels. In my own laboratory, I am investigating initial myeloid lineage specification mechanisms at the top of the hematopoietic hierarchy with ultimate goal of constructing lineage specification networks in HSC and MPP levels to comprehensively control blood cell production as needed in disease and aging conditions. 

Dr. Hyun-Eui Kim is an Assistant Professor at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston. Dr. Kim received her B.S. in Biology from Yonsei University, M.S. in Neurobiology from Yonsei University, and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. After her Ph.D., she had her postdoctoral training at Salk Institute and UC Berkeley. Dr. Kim moved to Houston in 2018 as an assistant professor at the Integrative Biology and Pharmacology department and was awarded a Rising STARs award from UT Systems. Kim lab studies how mitochondrial metabolism affects cellular stress responses and age-related diseases.

Sung Hoon Kang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He earned a Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics at Harvard University and M.S. and B.S. degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT and Seoul National University, respectively. He has been investigating bioinspired solutions to address the current challenges in engineering materials and mechanical systems with applications including resilience, healthcare, sensing, and energy. His work was recognized by Invitee of the first US-Africa Frontiers of Science, Engineering, Medicine Symposium, 2022 Hanwha Non-Tenured Faculty Award, 2021, 2020 Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship, 2020 Johns Hopkins University Catalyst Award, 2019 Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering Research Lab Excellence Award, Invitee for 2019 China-America Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, FY 2018 Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program Award, Invitee of 2016 National Academy of Engineering US Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, and 2011 Materials Research Society Graduate Students Gold Award. He is a member of American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Physical Society, Materials Research Society, and Society of Engineering Science. He served as the elected Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary, and Editor of ASME Technical Committee on Mechanics of Soft Materials.

Dr. Joon-Seok Kim is an R&D Scientist at the National Security Sciences Directorate of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, focusing on geospatial science and location intelligence. He won multiple awards and competitions including the first place of ACM SIGSPATIAL Cup 2019 and Best Paper Award Runner-Up of IEEE MDM 2020. He worked at multiple institutions including Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (2020-2022), George Mason University (2018-2020), United Nation Global Service Centre (2016), and Pusan National University (2016-2018). He obtained his PhD in Computer Science from Pusan National University (2016). During his PhD, he worked at Integrated Media Systems Center in University of Southern California as a research collaborator (2013). Dr. Kim has served academic community in geoinformation and simulation including ACM SIGSPATIAL and GeoSim as a general chair, a PC chair, a track chair, a co-editor, and a pc member.

Dr. Chi Hwan Lee is the Lesli A. Geddes Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and by Courtesy, of Materials Engineering and Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at Purdue University. He received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 2009 and 2013, respectively. Prior to joining Purdue in 2015, he was a postdoctoral research associate in Department of Materials Science and Engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under the guidance of Professor John A. Rogers. His scholarly efforts are dedicated to addressing unmet clinical needs using novel yet simple wearable devices with a clear path towards translation to produce measurable clinical and economic impacts. He has received prestigious national and international awards including the 2021 Sensors Young Investigator Award, 2020 Purdue CoE Early Career Research Award, 2019 NIH Trailblazer Award, and 2019 Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association (KSEA) Young Investigator Award. He has published > 70 journal papers and 4 book chapters; issued 5 U.S. patents; filed 11 utility patents; and co-founded 4 startup companies. At Purdue University, he has contributed to research grants totaling > $90M (responsible for > $10M) from a variety range of governmental and industrial sources.

Kate Hyun is an associate professor of the department of civil engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington and the director of the Sustainable Mobility and Resilient Transportation research lab. She received her B.S. (2008) and M.S. (2010) in Urban Planning and Engineering from Yonsei University, Korea; and Ph.D. (2016) in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Irvine. She has secured over $5 million worth of external grants between 2017 and 2022 and served as the Principal Investigator (PI) of 20 research projects. She explores how professionals in different fields could interact around issues of transportation and transportation equity and identifies opportunities for enhanced collaboration and training in anticipation of emerging transportation needs for disadvantaged communities. Those projects have been supported by NSF, NAM (National Academy of Medicine), US DOT, State DOTs (Texas, California, Washington), regional/local agencies, and private foundations. She was a recipient of a Catalyst Award (2021) from the National Academy of Medicine- Healthy Longevity.

Prof. Dong-Hyun Kim is an Associate professor of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering at the Northwestern University. He is the director of Biomaterials for Image Guided MEDicine Lab (BIGMed lab) and the co-director of Molecular and Translational Imaging Core (MTIC) at R.H Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center. He received his B.S. in materials science and engineering and Ph.D. in medical science, Yonsei University. He got postdoc trainings in chemical and biological engineering at University of Alabama and Materials Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He and his group’s research has focused on image guided medicine using multifunctional therapeutic carrier platforms to treat cancers for 20 years and published over 100 papers on international refereed journals. Dr. Kim is working closely with clinicians, medical scientists, biologist, engineers, and imaging professionals to translate new cancer therapeutic approaches to clinics. He has been working on NIH research projects and published papers focusing on image guided medicine in high impact scientific journals. He recently got awarded 2020 Distinguished Investigator from the Academy for Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research.

Harold Kim is a Professor of Physics at Georgia Institute of Technology. He majored in physics at KAIST and earned his PhD from Stanford University with a thesis entitled “single-molecule studies of dynamic biological processes.” He then did postdoctoral research at Harvard University on quantitative gene expression in budding yeast. In 2010, he joined the physics faculty at Georgia Tech. His NSF- and NIH-funded research has focused on the extreme mechanics of DNA, which underlies packaging, regulation, and repair of the genome inside the cell. Since 2012, he has been a core faculty member of the NSF-funded Physics of Living Systems (PoLS) student research network. His awards include the Grigorio Weber International Prize in Biological Fluorescence (2005) and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface (2007). He is a lifetime member of the Association of Korean Physicists in America (AKPA) and will serve as its president beginning in 2023. Outside his profession, he loves watching sports, playing golf, and going hiking with his wife, dog, and two kids.