Hyunjoong Kim

Hyunjoong "Hune" Kim, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Department of Mathematics

University of Houston

Bio

2023-present: Postdoc Fellow, University of Houston

2020-2023: Simons Postdoc Fellow, University of Pennsylvania

2020: Ph.D. in Mathematics, University of Utah

Research

As an applied probabilist and math biologist, my research interest lies in developing and analyzing mathematical models for biological systems that incorporate randomness. My recent research themes include:

Stochastic processes in decisions

How do we make decisions based on observation? What is the best way of making decisions in changing environments? Compared to the optimal decisions, how do animals, including us, perceive and behave? If the subjects are sub-optimal, why is it?

We pursue those questions with stochastic models of perception and action based on the Bayesian framework and dynamic programming.

Stochastic search processes in cell biology

Cells find their targets by employing random movements and often teaming up with multiple random searchers. Despite appearing inefficient, stochasticity is prevalent in many cellular search mechanisms, suggesting that random trajectories are efficient and so favored by evolution.

Our primary goal is to understand how cellular search mechanisms can achieve optimality by stochasticity. Our recent work in this topic involves a variety of stochastic models and their first passage time problems, together with statistical data analysis of trajectories.

Collaborators

I am very fortunate to collaborate with many fantastic scientists. Some past and present theory collaborators include:

Paul Bressloff, Jun Allard, Yoichiro Mori, Joshua Plotkin, Sean Lawley, Krešimir Josić, Zachary Kilpatrick, Jeehyun Lee, Hee-Dae Kwon,