Assistant Professor and Mark A. Pytosh Scholar
Department of Chemistry
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Faculty Affiliate at The Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology
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About Hee-Sun

Dan Van Nguyen
ndvan at illinois dot edu
Van completed her MSc degree in Industrial Biotechnology from Khon Kaen University, Thailand, followed by her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Kyung Hee University, South Korea. Under the guidance of Prof. Seo Tae Seok, she focused on developing integrated microfluidic devices for diagnosing foodborne pathogens and viruses. With a keen interest in genomic technology and Lab-on-a-chip systems, she joined the Han lab to delve into microfluidics-based single-virus genomics.

Sungjong Lee
sl51 at illinois dot edu
Sungjong was born and raised in South Korea. He obtained his B.S. and M.S. from Korea University, where he worked on the synthesis of 2-arylindole-3-acetic acid derivatives using cyanide-mediated imino-Stetter reactions  under Prof. Cheol-Hong Cheon. Sungjong began his graduate work at UIUC in the Sarlah group in 2018, where he studied the synthesis of aminoglycosides. He joined the Han Lab in 2021 working on the synthesis and application of quantum dots. Outside the lab, Sungjong enjoys listening to music, singing songs, and playing the clarinet. He also likes pets and games.

Chih-Lin Chen
chihlin3 at illinois dot edu
Chih-Lin obtained a BS in Applied Chemistry from National Chiao-Tung University (NCTU) and a MS from National Taiwan University (NTU) in Taiwan. As an undergraduate, he worked in Prof. Paweł Urban’ lab to develop automatic miniature device to monitor dynamic chemical reactions. After graduating from NCTU, he worked with Prof. Cheng-Chih Hsu in NTU to develop ambient ionization mass spectrometry ion sources. Now he joined the Han group to conduct research with droplet microfluidics.

Heewon Noh
heewonn2 at illinois dot edu
Heewon is a Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering graduate student. She earned her BS and MS from Seoul National University in Korea. She worked in Prof. Byung-gee Kim’s lab doing research on biocatalysis and protein engineering. She joined the Han group in 2021. Her research interest lies in the field of synthetic biology, currently working on synthetic cell construction.

Qianlu (Farah) Feng
qianluf2 at illinois dot edu
Qianlu (Farah) Feng is a graduate student in Neuroscience at UIUC. She graduated from University of Wisconsin-Madison with a B.S. degree in Mathematics as well as in Biochemistry. As an undergraduate, her research with Dr. Chad Rienstra and Dr. Ronnie Frederick focused on Parkinson’s related α-synuclein protein. Working with Dr. Lingjun Li, Farah studied crustacean hemolymph neuropeptides. In the Han Lab, her research focuses on imaging-based spatial transcriptomic techniques. She enjoys skiing, soccer, violin/playing in orchestra, and video production.

Seokjin Yeo
sy44 at illinois dot edu
Seokjin is a graduate student in Bioengineering at UIUC. He obtained a B. S. from Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea. As an undergraduate he worked in the lab of Prof. Seung-Kyun Lee, where he developed methods to rapidly calculate static magnetic field perturbations generated by magnetized objects in arbitrary orientations. He joined Han group in 2022 where he now works on imaging-based spatial transcriptomics. He enjoys playing badminton.

Yaxin Yang
yaxiny2 at illinois dot edu
Yaxin Yang is a graduate student in the bioengineering program. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester with a major in Molecular Genetics and Data Science. As an undergraduate student, she worked in Prof. Heng Li’s lab doing research about long read RNA sequencing and in Prof. Jeniffer Brission’s lab doing research about the ecdysone response element in pea aphids. In the Han Lab, Yaxin’s research focuses on spatial transcriptomic analysis using computational tools.

Angela Wang
awang71 at illinois dot edu
Angela is an undergraduate student majoring in Biochemistry with a minor in Chemistry. She joined the lab in 2023 and works with Qianlu on imaging-based spatial transcriptomics. When not in lab she enjoys swimming, playing badminton, and being involved with different organizations on campus.

Joonhyuck Park
Postdoctoral Researcher
Now a faculty member at the Catholic University of Korea

JuYeon Lee
Postdoctoral Researcher
Now a faculty member at the Milikin University

Ryan Miller
Graduate Researcher
Now a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology/Emory University

Thomas Cowell
Graduate Researcher
Now a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB)

Wenyang Jing
Graduate Researcher

Arun Jayaraman
Undergraduate Researcher
Now a graduate student at Georgia Tech

Andrew Dobria
Undergraduate Researcher

Calvin Doty
Undergraduate Researcher

Bladen Lee
Undergraduate Researcher

Jack Hovey
Undergraduate Researcher

Starwing Chen
Undergraduate Researcher

Sunny Sun
Undergraduate Researcher

Giselle Soares
Undergraduate Researcher

Seungwook Kim
Undergraduate Researcher
Now a graduate student at Georgia Tech