Welcome!

Hello, I am Yoo Kyung - a postdoctoral researcher in the Furst Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. My work brings together soft matter physics, electrochemistry, and biology to explore how living systems can be engineered into functional materials. At MIT, I design and study interfaces between microbes and materials to develop materials-based biotechnology.

During my Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign under the supervision of Prof. Cecilia Leal, I studied how lipids and polymers organize at the nanoscale and how structure gives rise to function. Using multitudes of advanced materials characterization techniques, I learned to see materials as dynamic, hierarchical systems; an idea that continues to shape how I think about living materials today.

Among many others, my expertise includes Synchrotron X-ray scattering, atomic force microscopy, operando electrochemical imaging, and big data processing using Python language. I am a frequent user of small/wide-angle X-ray scattering at Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory and National Synchrotron Light Source-II at Brookhaven National Laboratory. 

Before I moved to USA for my PhD program, I completed MS and BS in Materials Science and Engineering at Seoul National University in Korea.

Outside the lab, I enjoy grocery shopping and cooking as creative outlets that fuel my scientific inspiration.