Biography

Yong-Su Jin is Professor of Food Microbiology in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition and a faculty member of the Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB). He is a principal investigator of the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), and is also a member of the Center for Advanced BioEnergy Research (CABER) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Dr. Jin received B.S. (1996) and M. S. (1998, advisor: Prof. Jin-Ho Seo) degrees in Food Science and Technology from Seoul National University and received Ph. D. degree (2002, advisor: Prof. Thomas Jeffries) in Food Science and Bacteriology (minor) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After completing a post-doctoral training (2003-2005, advisor: Prof. Greg Stephanopoulos) in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he served as an Assistant Professor (2006-2008) in the Department of Food Science and Biotechnology at the Sungkyunkwan University in Korea.

Dr. Jin’s research is centered on metabolic engineering of microorganisms to produce biofuels and chemicals from renewable biomass. His research aims to identify, characterize, and engineer beneficial genetic perturbations eliciting rapid and efficient production of target products, such as biofuels, nutraceuticals, and food ingredients. In addition, his group performs food safety related research: rapid methods for food pathogen detection, elucidation of bactericidal mechanisms by antimicrobial compounds, and investigation of cellular toxicity caused by nanomaterials. Dr. Jin was a Faculty Fellow of National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) for 2009-2010 and received the ACES College Faculty Awards for Excellence in Research.