Soojung Claire Hur

Soojung Claire Hur, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, is an expert in microfluidics. She is a fellow of the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute, an associate researcher at the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology, and holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Through the Hur Lab on Micro-Fluidic Biophysics, Hur is working to develop microfluidic platforms to understand complex fluid dynamics principles and to translate acquired knowledge into practical applications. In particular, she is interested in studying single-cell mechanics and understanding the veiled correlations between cellular functions and their physical phenotypes. Her lab utilizes a unique microscale hydrodynamic phenomenon called inertial focusing to accomplish high-throughput target cell detection, cost-effective cell separation, and sequential multimolecular delivery. They aim to create innovative techniques for use in high-throughput target cell detection, cost-effective cell separation, and sequential multimolecular delivery that are useful for oncology, immunology, gene therapy, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Hur holds three U.S. patents and two international patents for her work.

Hur is a member of several professional scientific societies including the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the American Chemical Society (ACS). She serves as an editor for the journals Nature Scientific Reports, SLAS Technology special issue, and Biomicrofluidics: Microfluidics, Circulating Biomarkers and Cancer. She also is a reviewer for additional science journals, such as PLoS One and the Annals of Biomedical Engineering; agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); and conferences for organizations, such as ASME.

She has won numerous awards and scholarships, including two 2024 Johns Hopkins Discovery Awards, the 2023 Susan G. Komen Foundation’s Career Catalyst Award, the Edward K. Rice Outstanding Doctoral Student award, the HSSEAS (UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science) academic scholarship, the UCLA Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department’s Chevron scholarship and UCLA Dean’s special fellowship, the 2018 inaugural Johnson and Johnson WiSTEM2D Scholars Award, the 2020 Johns Hopkins Discovery Award, and the School of Engineering Junior Faculty Award at the 2018 Johns Hopkins Department of Medicine Research Retreat. Hur’s research has been funded by the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s Career Catalyst Award and the Hartwell Foundation’s Individual Biomedical Research Award.

Hur received her bachelor’s degree, master’s and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2005, 2007 and 2011, respectively. In September 2011, with five years of research funding, she joined the Rowland Institute at Harvard University as one of two Rowland Fellows . Next, Hur managed clinical studies funded by Vortex Biosciences, Inc. as an assistant researcher at UCLA Department of Bioengineering. She joined the Whiting School of Engineering faculty in 2015.