Miyoung Chun, Ph.D., Ex Officio

Executive Vice President of Science Programs The Kavli Foundation

Miyoung Chun joined The Kavli Foundation in 2007 as the Vice President of Science Programs. With the Foundation, Chun was instrumental in the launching and development of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) initiative first announced by President Obama in his 2013 State of the Union address. The BRAIN initiative aims to accelerate the development and application of innovative technologies that will enable researchers to produce dynamic pictures of the brain that show how individual brain cells and complex neural circuits interact in both time and space.

Before coming to The Kavli Foundation, Chun’s career spanned a wide range of experience in academia and industry. Chun obtained her Ph.D. degree in Molecular Genetics from The Ohio State University in 1990 and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT’s Whitehead Institute studying the cell and molecular biology of receptors. She was an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and a member of Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute at Boston University School of Medicine in 1995. There she taught in the areas of cell biology and molecular medicine, and conducted research in signal transduction of G-protein coupled receptors. From 1999 to 2004, she worked in industry for Millennium Pharmaceuticals as a scientist and project leader, where her research focused on genomics/functional genomics and on molecular imaging in drug discovery and development. She discovered and characterized novel genes that are important to inflammatory and cardiovascular diseases and has over 30 U.S. and International issued/published patents.

In 2004, she returned to academia as Assistant Dean of Science and Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), in particular, serving the California Nanosystems Institute. She was also appointed as Director of International Research Advancement at UCSB. In this role, she was active in building partnerships among academia, government and industry around the globe.