Dr. Karl Jacob Jr. and Karl Jacob III Early-Career Chair Eun Ji Chung.
Dr. Karl Jacob Jr. and Karl Jacob III Early-Career Chair and Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering Eun Ji Chung has been elected a 2025 Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).
Chung is an expert in molecular design, nanomedicine and tissue engineering to generate biomaterial strategies for clinical applications. A key focus of her lab’s research involves the design and application of self-assembling peptide nanoparticles for targeted cardiovascular and cancer treatments and the treatment of kidney disease.
Election to the AIMBE College of Fellows is among the highest professional distinctions for medical and biological engineers, comprised of the top two percent of engineers in these fields. College membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering and medicine research, practice, or education” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of medical and biological engineering or developing and implementing innovative approaches to bioengineering education.”
Chung was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers and members of the College of Fellows “for pioneering contributions to the development of nanobiomaterial strategies in drug delivery, diagnostics, and tissue restoration for disease applications.”
A faculty member in the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience, Chung received her B.A. in Molecular Biology with honors from Scripps College, Claremont, California, and her Ph.D. from the Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Program and the Department of Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University. She is the director of USC’s Transformative Center for Nanomedicine and Drug Delivery.
Chung was previously named as a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) in 2023 for her groundbreaking work in drug delivery. In 2022 the American Heart Association (AHA) awarded Chung a prestigious Transformational Project Award and in 2018, the NIH awarded Chung the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. In 2019, Chung was named a NANOMED New Innovator by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). She also received the BMES 2020 Rising Star Junior Faculty Award.
She was named 2019 Orange County Engineering Council Outstanding Young Engineer and a Journal of Materials Chemistry B Emerging Investigator for 2019.
Chung was awarded the 2018 NIH New Innovator Award to develop a new approach to a type of kidney disease known as autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, the most commonly inherited kidney disorder.
Chung received the SQI-Baxter Early Career Award, the American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Postdoctoral Research Grant from the Chicago Biomedical Consortium, and the NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award. She is a member of the Society for Biomaterials and the American Institute for Chemical Engineers.
Chung was formally inducted as part of the AIMBE College of Fellows Class of 2025 at a ceremony during the AIMBE Annual Event at the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel in Arlington, Virginia, on March 31, 2025.
Published on March 31st, 2025
Last updated on March 31st, 2025
