Seewon was born and raised in Seoul, Korea and moved to Daejeon to attend KAIST for his undergraduate studies in Chemistry. As a graduate student in KAIST, he studied natural product synthesis with Prof. Hee-Yoon Lee. Then, he moved to Prof. Sukbok Chang’s group in KAIST as a postdoctoral scholar to investigate the hydrosilylation reactions. After two years, he moved to Prof. Seth Herzon’s group at Yale University to develop antibody-drug-conjugates (ADC) based on syntheses of natural product analogues for a year. He then joined Prof. Brown’s group at Indiana University to develop a transition metal-catalyzed difunctionalization of alkenes. Outside of the lab, he enjoys watching sports and traveling around the US.
“The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.” – Bruce Feirstein