Hyun Youk

For More Information

• www.youklab.org

Education

• Ph.D. in Physics, MIT, 2010
• Honours B.Sc. in Physics & Mathematics, University of Toronto, 2004

Academic Positions

• Associate Professor of Physics at UIUC, Nov 2025 - Present
• Associate Professor of Systems Biology (Tenured) at UMass Chan Medical School, Nov 2020 - Nov 2025
• Assistant Professor of Physics & Quantitative Biology at Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), Jan 2015 - Nov 2020
• Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow at UCSF, May 2011 - Sep 2014

Research Statement

My group performs experiments in real cells, computational experiments, and mathematical analyses of dynamical systems and computational processes. With this multi-pronged approach, we aim to discover physical principles that distinguish living systems from non-living systems, with an emphasis on the murky regions where living and non-living seem to blend together -- for example, at the border between truly dead and "lifeless but not dead." Our central concept is a system's non-equilibrium capacity (NEC): its ability to generate, sustain, and -- if the system is arrested -- restart life-associated dynamics, including self-organization, information processing, and self-replication. Experimentally, we slow or suspend cellular processes to determine when NEC is preserved and when it is irreversibly lost (death). Computationally and theoretically, we construct and analyze non-equilibrium dynamics in discrete computational systems, revealing how collective order -- and, at times, unexpected features such as predictability -- emerge, persist, or collapse. Through these approaches, we seek a broader physics of living systems.