Hyejung Won, PhD has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Genetics, effective July 1, 2023.
Dr. Won earned her BS in Biological Sciences (2008) and her PhD in Biological Sciences (2013) from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) (Daejeon, South Korea). Dr. Won completed Postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Daniel Geschwind at University of California Los Angeles (2013-2018). Dr. Won was appointed as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics at UNC-Chapel Hill, effective August 2018.
Dr. Won’s central research goal is to elucidate the neurobiological basis of neuropsychiatric and substance use disorders by deciphering regulatory mechanisms or risk variants. One major contribution she has made is the development of the computational tool H-MAGMA, which makes it possible to link non-coding SNPs to their target genes based on functional genomic evidence and adds relevant cellular context to gene mapping by using chromatin interaction data from disease-relevant tissue and cell types.
Dr. Won is also a member of the UNC Neuroscience Center and has been continuously funded since joining UNC.