BIOGRAPHY

Youngkun obtained his Ph.D. in August 2022 from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). In 2022, Youngkun was honored with the Best Paper award at KAIST for his doctoral research and was recognized as an outstanding Ph.D. candidate by the Korean National Research Foundation (NRF) in 2021. In 2023, Youngkun was selected as a Global Postdoctoral Fellow, and he has made significant contributions at the WaTER Institute and the Testbed team of the NEWT Center. Youngkun is managing various projects related to PFAS, funded by the DoD-Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) for the Pitch to Pilot (P2P) program, and the Korean NRF for Global Research Collaborations with KAIST.

From 2025, Youngkun is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Rice Sustainability Institute. His project, titled “Sustainable Energy-Efficient Solutions to Detoxify PFAS 'Forever Chemicals' and Improve Environmental Justice,” aims to develop a sustainable approach for the destruction of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in contaminated saline waters, utilizing a boron nitride (BN)-based photocatalysis system. To further advance equity in sustainability, this project will also incorporate a community engagement approach to educate underserved communities along the Gulf Coast about the PFAS problem and its solutions.