Sung-Yon Kim Professor
sungyonkim@snu.ac.kr

Sung-Yon’s lab investigates neural mechanisms for behaviors that maintain homeostasis. Having been trained in the labs that pioneered optogenetics and CLARITY, he has been dedicating himself to developing and integrating cutting-edge neuroscience tools for the study of homeostasis-maintaining behavior. This is motivated by his vision that, thanks to the recent advancement of neurotechniques, we may finally be able to find mechanistic explanations for how it all begins (sensory transduction), how it all ends (behavioral/physiological output) and everything in between, at least for well-conserved behaviors fundamental to animals’ survival and health. More about Sung-Yon

Moonsun Sa Postdoctoral Researcher
NRF Post-Doc Collaborative Grant PI, Ascending SNU Future Leader Fellow
moonsun@snu.ac.kr

Moonsun graduated from Korea University with a double major in Environmental and Ecological Engineering and Biotechnology. She earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the KU-KIST Graduate School at Korea University, specializing in Nano-Bio-Information Technology (NBIT). During her doctoral studies, she worked as a student researcher at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and the Institute for Basic Science (IBS). As the first author, she published several papers in journals such as Experimental Neurobiology, Molecules and Cells, and International Journal of Molecular Sciences. Following this, she continued her research at IBS, investigating the interactions between astrocytes and neurons in the hypothalamus of diet-induced obese mouse models, and published the findings in Nature Metabolism in 2023. Since September 2023, she has joined Professor Sung-Yon Kim’s research team and has been utilizing her expertise in electrophysiology to study the plastic changes in gut-brain axis neural circuits under obese conditions. In 2024, she was awarded the AMOREPACIFIC Global Next Generation Research Award at the Korean Society for Molecular and Cellular Biology (KSMCB) conference.

Dong-Jun Koo PhD student
lastprophet9@gmail.com

Dong-Jun received his bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences and Brain and Cognitive Sciences from Korea University in 2016 and is pursuing PhD studies with Sung-Yon in the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience. He likes to talk and debate about neuroscience so much that he organized an undergrad neuroscience society (named Newlearn) at Korea University. Outside the lab, he usually writes essays and poems. He won several intramural poster awards in 2018 and 2017, with the work (the OMNIA technique) published in Bioconjugate Chemistry in June 2020. He also successfully led several collaborative projects with other labs on campus, which earned him three co-first author papers in ACS Nano, Science Advances, and Acta Biomaterialia.

Myungsun Lee PhD student
mysun94@snu.ac.kr

Myungsun joined K-Lab in 2016 as an undergraduate intern. After graduating from Seoul National University with a B.S. in biological sciences, he is now pursuing PhD in K-Lab as a chemistry major. He co-led a project studying the neural circuits underlying thermoregulatory behavior, and this was published in Neuron in Jan 2022, and he received an outstanding poster award twice at the 24th and 27th annual meeting of KSBNS and the IMBG Young Scientist Award for his excellent presentation of this work. He enjoys playing the guitar outside the lab.

Seong-Rae Kim PhD student
kimsri21@gmail.com

Seongrae graduated from Yonsei University after majoring in biochemistry and cognitive sciences and is now a PhD student in the Kim lab as a chemistry major. He is highly interested in the various fields of neuroscience, including emotions. He likes watching movies and listening to music in his free time. He published a review paper on the function of excitatory and inhibitory neurons in the BNST in Mol. Cells in 2021. For his excellent presentation on his ongoing work on social behavior, he won the IMBG Young Scientist Award in 2022 and the Excellent Presentation Award from the International Brain Initiative Conference in 2023. He visited UCLA to accelerate his study on social preference behavior in 2023.

Myungmo An PhD student
rmr1111@snu.ac.kr

Myungmo graduated from Seoul National University in 2017 with B.S. in Biology and Brain-Mind-Behavior program. He worked for a year at Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience and started his PhD in K-Lab as a Chemistry major in 2018. He was one of the first members of the K-lab. He is very social and humorous. His work on the characterization of lateral septum Sst+ neurons was published as a cover article in Experimental Neurobiology in 2022.

Sieun Jung PhD student
Kwanjeong Fellow, Next-generation Cultivation Program Fellow
si57371225@gmail.com

Sieun received her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Yonsei University. She wants to be a neurobiologist because she is so fascinated by how our brain creates and regulates minds and thoughts. She likes listening to music in her free time. Sieun co-led a project studying the neural circuits underlying thermoregulatory behavior, which was published in Neuron in Jan 2022, and received the excellent poster award at the 23rd annual meeting of KSBNS for her superb presentation of this research. She was also chosen to give an oral presentation at the SSIB 2021 meeting and won the IMBG Young Scientist Award in the same year. In 2022, she won another excellent poster award at the 25th annual meeting of KSBNS, was selected as the recipient of a graduate student fellowship from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF). She also obtained a travel grant from NRF and supported herself to visit UCSD in 2023.

Minyoo Kim PhD student
Global PhD Fellow
minyookim2@gmail.com

Minyoo graduated from Korea University with a B.S. in life sciences. He is interested in neural circuits underlying homeostasis and sleep. He co-led a project on a neural circuit mechanism for mechanosensory feedback control of ingestion, and this work was published in Nature in 2020. He also published two review papers, one on neural signaling of gut mechanosensation in ingestive and digestive processes (in Nat Rev Neurosci in 2022). and another one on homeostatic and hedonic appetites (in EMM 2022). His achievement was both internationally and domestically recognized by the awards below. Outside the lab, he enjoys playing piano and likes to play soccer and basketball.
2020 Travel Awardee, Janelia Conference (on interoception)
2021 Outstanding student award from Seoul National University BK21 Group
2021 Young Investigator Research Award, ICKSMCB, KSMCB
2021 Genolution Excellent Poster Award, ICKSMCB, KSMCB
2022 Best Oral Presentation Award, KSBNS
2023 Outstanding Poster Presentation Award, KSBNS
2024 Next-generation Cultivation Program Fellow, NRF

Ben H. Ahn PhD student
sso03198@gmail.com

Ben joined the K-Lab after graduating from Yonsei University, majoring in biochemistry. He is filled with the hopes of understanding how exactly changes in neural circuitry and changes in behavior reciprocally affect each other. As a multi-talented person, he likes to pick up a new sport and enjoys soccer, cycling, badminton, and skiing among many sports. He published a review paper in Experimental and Molecular Medicine in 2022 on homeostatic and hedonic appetites. He also invented “Automated apparatus for stereotactic surgical device”(KR102525496, USUS20220287791A1), and this was licensed to Doric in 2023.
2019 Excellence Award from EP&S Education
2021 Excellence Award from the COVID-19 Student Paper Competition

Hyeongjun Cho PhD student
Soseon Fellow, BK21 Fellow
whguwns2@gmail.com

Hyeongjun graduated from SNU, majoring in Chemistry, and started PhD work in the K-Lab in 2022. Wondering who we are, he’s been attracted to neurobiology and joined the K-lab to study neuroscience. He’s also interested in understanding ourselves from an evolutionary point of view. He enjoys listening to music and watching Netflix. In addition to focusing on a neuroscience project, he participated in collaborative work with other labs at SNU, which earned him a co-authored paper published in ACS Nano in Nov 2020 and another one in Science Advances in Nov 2022.

Junkoo Park PhD student
Woosan Fellow
semi9@snu.ac.kr

Junkoo obtained his bachelor’s degree in Applied Biology & Chemistry and Brain-Mind-Behavior at SNU and is pursuing PhD with Sung-Yon since 2022. Well before then, he joined K-Lab as an intern in August 2020. Junkoo thinks he can find the answer to Socrates’s famous question “Know thyself” in the brain and started studying neuroscience. Furthermore, he believes that neuroscience can help many people suffering from neurological and psychiatric disorders. He was attracted to K-lab for the ongoing research on how motivation leads to certain behaviors. Junkoo enjoys listening to music and recommending good pieces to others, such as those by Hyuk-Oh. He aspires to be a great and humorous neuroscientist. He is the winner of the excellent presentation award from the Brain-Mind-Behavior Program.

Gilju Han PhD student
BK21 Fellow
giljuhan@gmail.com

Gilju obtained her B.S. in Biotechnology and Brain and Cognitive Sciences from Korea University and joined the K-Lab as a PhD student in 2022. She was the president of the undergrad neuroscience society (named NewLearn). She is interested in neural circuits governing various behaviors. She likes hanging out with friends and watching movies and videos.

Jennifer JiSoo Kwon PhD student
kwonjisoo1030@gmail.com

Ji Soo graduated from Korea University with a double major in Psychology and Biotechnology. Led by the core question “How do sensory inputs converge to induce changes in behavior?”, she is pursuing a PhD alongside the K-lab starting from 2023 in hopes to understand how selective subpopulations of the neural reward circuitry contribute to the dynamic homeostatic maintenance of our body. She has also been accepted to partake in a three-week ‘Imaging Structure & Function in the Nervous System’ program held by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Academics aside, she enjoys gouache painting and trekking with her friends.

Jin-Seong Kim M.S. student
jinseongkim97@gmail.com

Jin-Seong graduated from Sungkyunkwan University with a life science major, and joined K-Lab as a master student in 2024. He is broadly interested in neural circuits for perception, behavior, and memory. Currently, he is working with Seong-Rae to dissect neural circuits underlying social cognition and social behavior. Outside the lab, he likes watching movies, traveling, and walking around.

Anna Kondaurova M.S. student
annkali36@gmail.com

Hi, my name is Anna Kondaurova. Originally from a small beautiful city in Russia, I came to Korea for higher education and graduated in Psychology and Medical Biology Science from the Catholic University of Korea. Since childhood, I have been interested in how the world around us works. As the nervous system and brain make us feel world around as it is, how does its shape our sensations, feelings, and responses to enormous stimuli? Guided by these questions, I joined K-lab as an intern. Beyond academics, I like spending time with my family, singing and enjoining music.

MyungSun Nam PhD student
myungsun@snu.ac.kr

MyungSun Nam graduated from the Department of Biological Sciences at SNU in August 2024. Starting in September, she began her PhD in the Department of Chemistry also became a member of K-Lab. In 2021, Myung-Sun founded and served as the first president of the Brain and Cognitive Science Community (BCSC), an academic organization for undergraduate students. In 2022, MyungSun organized the BCSC in SNU. MyungSun is interested in how emotions are generated and why individuals differ in emotional sensitivity and regulation. MyungSun aims to explain the mechanisms of emotions at the neural circuit level—starting her first step at K-lab, investigating the process of value evaluation in innate behavior. In her free time, she enjoys a cappella.

Yuni Lee Undergrad student

Yuni is an exchange student from the University of Texas at Austin who is with the K-Lab for the fall 2024 semester. At UT Austin, she is majoring in neuroscience. She became interested in the field after facilitating piano lessons for kids with neurodevelopmental disabilities and now hopes to investigate the genetic and/or neural circuit mechanisms behind conditions such as autism spectrum disorder. During her time in the K-Lab, she is learning about optogenetic techniques and participating in research. Outside of lab, she enjoys playing piano and jogging.

Jisim Jung Lab Manager
jsjung@snu.ac.kr

Jisim is the lab manager of the K-lab. She somehow wonderfully helps the members with everything.

Han-Eol Park PhD (2016/9 – 2024/2)

Han-Eol received his Ph.D. from Seoul National University in 2022 under the mentorship of Profs. Sung-Yon Kim and Chang Ho Sohn. He led the development of the ZOOM technique, which was published in Advanced Science in 2019. With his exceptional creativity, he is continuing to focus on technique development. He won an outstanding paper award from IMBG in 2019.

Dong-Yoon Kim PhD (2016/3 – 2022/8)
HFSP Postdoctoral Fellow

Dong-Yoon received his Ph.D. from Seoul National University in 2022 under the mentorship of Prof. Sung-Yon Kim. Among the many exciting projects he has led at K-Lab, his work on a neural circuit mechanism for mechanosensory feedback control of ingestion was published in Nature in April 2020, and his work on the neural circuits underlying thermoregulatory behavior was published in Neuron in Jan 2022. These achievements earned him numerous academic honors and awards, as listed below:
2018 Excellent Poster Award, SNU Program in Neuroscience
2019 Best Poster Award, the 26th East Asia Joint Symposium on Biomedical Research
2019 Excellent Poster Award, SNU Program in Neuroscience
2020 AMOREPACIFIC Great Global Next Generation Research Awards, KSMCB
2020 Best Research Paper Award, Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics
2021 Outstanding Presentation Award, Korean Endocrine Society
2021 Best Poster Presentation Award, SSIB 2021, the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior
2021 Talent Award of Korea, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education of Korea
2022 Best PhD Thesis Award, College of Natural Science, Seoul National University
2023 HFSP Postdoctoral Fellowship (Top 1% Fellowship Score!)

Hyun-Kyung Kim MS (2020/3 – 2022/8) 

2022. 8. MS in Chemistry, Seoul National University

Hyun-Kyung participated in and contributed to a number of projects, the most notable of which was the characterization of lateral septum Sst+ neurons.

Gyuryang Heo (2017/8 – 2021/7)
KFAS Fellow

2021. 9. – PhD Program in Neuroscience, Harvard University

During his time at K-Lab, Gyuryang co-led a project on a neural circuit mechanism for mechanosensory feedback control of ingestion, and this work was published in Nature in April 2020.

Hyeonseok Jang (2018/10 – 2021/7)
KFAS Fellow

2021. 9. – Biological Sciences PhD Program, University of California, San Diego

Celine Son (2019/9 – 2021/3)

2021. 9. – Graduate Program in Physiological Science, University of California, Los Angeles

Kyunghoe Kim (2016/11 – 2019/12)

2020. 1. – LG Household & Health Care
2020. 2. MS in Chemistry, Seoul National University

Jong Hwi Park (2016/12 – 2018/04)

2020. 3. – Data Scientist at Wyndham Destinations
2018. 6 . – 2019. 12. MS in Data Science, University of Rochester