Songi Han

Biography

Songi Han received her Doctoral Degree in Natural Sciences (Dr.rer.nat) from Aachen University of Technology (RWTH), Germany, in 2001. She pursued her postdoctoral studies at the University of California Berkeley sponsored by the Feodor Lynen Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Dr. Han joined the faculty at University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 2004, received tenure in 2010, and was promoted to full professor in 2012. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Department of Chemical Engineering at UCSB. She is a recipient of the 2008 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, the 2010 Dreyfus-Teacher Scholar Award, the 2011 NIH Innovator Award, the 2015 Bessel Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the 2018 recipient of the Biophysical Society Innovator Award. Her research group focuses on mechanistic studies of DNP as well as broadening the application scope of DNP and EPR.

Research

A concerted effort of the Han Group is the development of novel techniques and approaches, relying on electron and nuclear spin magnetic resonance that enables the study of biomolecular structure, dynamics and interaction with unprecedented sensitivity, resolution and information content. The Han Group relies on state of the art dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP)-enhanced nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and relaxometry, as well as electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) tools. We are motivated by the power of “Seeing is Believing” to transform the study of biomolecular structure, molecular interactions, dynamics and functional processes with atomic and molecular-level insight.