Hyun-Joon Ha

Hyun-Joon Ha received his BS degree in chemistry in 1982 from Seoul National University with honor, and his Ph.D. in 1987 from Brown University under the direction of Professor David E. Cane. After a one-year postdoctoral fellowship with Professor Michael C. Pirrung at Stanford University, he returned to Korea in 1988 and accepted the position of senior research scientist at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST).

Dr. Ha was involved in the chemical approach for the development of new biologically active agrochemicals. In 1991, he joined the faculty of the chemistry department at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, and since 1997 he has been a full professor of this department. During his tenure, he took university positions as a dean of general affairs (2004 – 2006) and dean of natural science (2013 – 2014).

In 1993, Dr. Ha carried out some research at the chemistry department of Cambridge University, U.K., as a short-term visiting scholar of Emmanuel College. Academically, he served as an organizer of numerous international symposia including ICOS-17, 11-ACC, IUPAC 46th General Assembly, and 43rd IUPAC Congress, etc. He was elected as the 51st president of the Korean Chemical Society for a two-year term 2018 - 19.

Dr. Ha’s research interests include the exploitation of new methods in organic synthesis, aziridines and heterocycles, imines and iminium ions, asymmetric synthesis of biologically active molecules, and lipase-mediated reactions. Especially, he has been involved in aziridine chemistry with the industrial production of chiral aziridine-2-carboxylates from which many nitrogen-containing cyclic and acyclic molecules are prepared in optically pure forms. He has recently become interested in medicinal chemistry for drug discovery, process development for pharmaceuticals, and the design and synthesis of radiopharmaceuticals. He is a member of the Korean and American Chemical Societies and a fellow of IUPAC. Currently, he serves as an associate editor of Asian J. Org. Chem. From Wiley VCH. He holds several patents and has published over 170 peer-reviewed papers in leading journals and two books including the recently edited “Synthesis of 4- to 7-Membered Heterocycles by Ring Expansion” with prof. M. D’hooghe.