PrincipAL Investigator

Hyunguk is currently an assistant professor at Seoul National University of Science and Technology (SeoulTech) in the Department of Future Energy Convergence. He earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Seoul (UOS), South Korea. During his time at the University of Seoul, he engaged in the study of computational chemistry for ~4 years, focusing on heterogeneous catalysis and energy materials for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) under the supervision of Prof. Jeong Woo Han. Hyunguk then moved to the U.S. in 2017, and received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in 2021 from the Pennsylvania State University (PSU) under the guidance of Prof. Yuan Xuan and Prof. Adri van Duin. During his Ph.D., his research focused on modeling of high-temperature chemistry and soot formation of bio-fuels using computational fluid dynamics and ReaxFF molecular dynamics. Prior to joining SeoulTech, he was a postdoctoral associate in the Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), where he was in the group of Prof. Giannis Mpourmpakis. At the University of Pittsburgh, he worked on developing a computational framework to accurately calculate thermochemistry data of large and flexible molecules, with the aim of advancing the chemical recycling of waste plastics via pyrolysis technology.