Junghyo Yoon

Junghyo Yoon is a research scientist in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) and the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). An engineer with extensive experience in system design and optimisation from scratch, his research projects have covered areas including electro-kinetics for virus detection, fluid monitoring and control systems engineering from macro- to micro-fluids and developing consumable thermoplastic devices.

In 2021, Junghyo began working with Jongyoon Han, a 2016 and 2021 J-WAFS principal investigator and professor of electrical engineering and computer science and of biological engineering at MIT, to develop a portable desalination unit which operates using solar power and can remove particles and salts from seawater to produce drinking water. The project won the 2021 J-WAFS Solutions Grant for their research project, 'Off-grid portable ion concentration polarisation desalination unit', which since developed into the J-WAFS spin-out company, NONA Technologies, and won the 2022 MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. In 2023, NONA Technologies was named as one of the top 13 tech innovators helping to save the planet by Newsweek.

Prior to joining MIT, Junghyo was an adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and a graduate student researcher at Korea University, where Junghyo took his bachelor's, master's and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering.