Chung keeps her personal and professional goals in focus. As an undergrad, she explains, “I wanted to pursue a field that could help human health and patients.” Now she is doing just that as an assistant professor in the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering at the USC, where her research group investigates molecular design, nanomedicine, and tissue engineering to generate biomaterial strategies for clinical applications.
Juggling an academic career and family life while pursuing lofty targets is undoubtedly challenging, and Chung admits that she is constantly pushing herself to perfect the balance. At the end of each year she writes out her career and family goals for the upcoming year, as well as any additional personal goals, and sets a timeline for achieving them. Her drive and holistic outlook should help her to achieve her next goal — to provide “cost-efficient nanodiagnostics and therapeutics for patients with diseases that are not well understood or are often overlooked.”