Sucheol, born and raised in South Korea, came to the US for his undergraduate study in UC Berkeley. After completing his bachelor degree, and subsequently his national service in Korea, he joined the chemistry graduate program at MIT. Under supervision of Prof. Adam Willard, he studied liquid water interfaces and hydration properties for his doctoral thesis. Specifically, he developed a theoretical model capable of predicting molecular structure of a water interface based on statistical mechanics of hydrogen bonds. Using this model, he identified the significant effects of non-ideal hydrogen bonding structures on the dielectric properties of air–water interface. He also developed a computational framework that can characterize hydration properties based on water’s interfacial molecular structure. This general framework is useful for elucidating microscopic details about the hydration dynamics behind complex biomolecular phenomena. 

After finishing his PhD, Sucheol joined the research group of Prof. Thirumalai in UT Austin. His postdoctoral research is focused on the structure–dynamics–function relationship of a genome. He is currently studying non-equilibrium effects of transcriptional activity on chromosome organization and dynamics using coarse-grained polymer simulations. He is also interested in how other important nuclear activities, such as DNA repair and chromatin remodeling, render the physical and functional properties of chromosome.

For the up-to-date research, please check out his personal website.