Seungwoo Shin, Ph.D.

I am a postdoctoral researcher in Dogic Lab at UCSB, working with Prof. Zvonimir Dogic. Prior to joining UCSB, I earned my Ph.D. at KAIST in 2020 (advisor: Prof. YongKeun (Paul) Park).

My research focuses on understanding and harnessing self-organization far from equilibrium in soft and active matter systems. I develop advanced optical approaches, including 3D holographic tomographic microscopy, to quantitatively manipulate and image these systems with high spatiotemporal resolution. By integrating these tools with reconstituted soft and active materials, I aim to uncover how activity spontaneously shapes structure and to exploit these principles for designing programmable soft and active materials.

DEGREE & EDUCATION

Ph.D. & M.S. in Physics Mar 2014 – Aug 2020

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Republic of Korea

advisor: Prof. YongKeun Park

Thesis title: Reconstruction of three-dimensional refractive-index tensor of optically
anisotropic objects by solving an inverse scattering problem of vectorial fields

B.S. in Physics Feb 2009 – Feb 2014

KAIST, Republic of Korea

HONORS & AWARDS

Emerging Scientist Award in Optics and Quantum Electronics, Korean Physical Society, 2024
Post-Doctoral Overseas Training, National Research Foundation of Korea, 2023, (awarded, declined)
HFSP Postdoctoral Fellowship, International Human Frontier Science Program Organization, 2023-2026
Investigator Award 2021, KAIST INSTITUTES, 2021
KAIX fellowship (Post-doc), KAIST, 2021
G-CORE Research Project Grant for Postdoc, Industry Liaison Center grant funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT of Republic of Korea, 2021-2022
Outstanding Dissertation Award, Jung H. Shin Scholarship Foundation, 2021
Pre-doctoral Fellow of Physics at KAIST, Dept. of Physics, KAIST, 2018
Presidential Science Scholarship, Korea Student Aid Foundation, 2009-2014

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Postdoctoral researcher May 2022 – Present

Department of Physics, University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB)

Postdoctoral researcher Sep 2020 – May 2022

Department of Physics, KAIST

Visiting researcher Nov 2017 – Dec 2017

Laser Biomedical Research Center, G. R. Harrison Spectroscopy Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Graduate research student Jul 2014 – Aug 2020

Department of Physics, KAIST