He completed his bachelor of science in chemistry education at Seoul National University in 1996. He then pursued a Masters and Ph.D. degree under the direction of Prof. B. Moon Kim at Seoul National University. His research focused on asymmetric organic reactions using heterogeneous chiral catalysts and chiral alcohols. While completing his degree, he was a visiting research student in Prof. Carsten Bolm’s group at the Institut für Organische Chemie, RWTH in Aachen, Germany. There, he studied asymmetric organic reactions for recycling catalysts. After completing his degree in 2003, he joined Dr. Choong Eui Song’s group as a post-doctoral research fellow at Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) in South Korea. There, he worked on the development of new chiral ligands and green catalytic process using ionic liquids. In February 2004 he became a senior research scientist at LG Chem, Ltd. looking at the development and optimization of organic light emitting diode materials. In September 2008 LG provided him the opportunity to work in Prof. D. Tyler McQuade’s lab at Florida State University and one year later he decided to stay in Florida to finish his research project. While in the group he hopes to learn how to apply flow reaction techniques to the industrial development. And also he is investigating new versatile chiral ligands (N-heterocyclic carbene ligands) and the reuse of chiral catalysts for industrial usage using flow reaction techniques.

He can be reached at pjkyoon@hotmail.com.