Hyeonsik Yoon is a Master of Environmental Policy student at Duke Kunshan University with a background in biology from Kyung Hee University. His research interests span microalgal biotechnology, environmental microbiology, genome engineering, and sustainable bioenergy, with a particular focus on genome engineering of microalgae and how microalgal traits can be applied to climate-resilient and sustainable technologies.

His research experience includes work in microbial genomics and plant immunity and genomics laboratories, where he has studied microbial genetics, genomics, microalgal biology, and genome engineering. During his undergraduate studies, he published research in microbiology, including studies on bacterial identification using genetic markers and microbial genome characterization. He also contributed to the characterization of stress-tolerant microalgal strains and received Best Poster Awards at the Asia-Korea Conference 2024 and Upcoming Solutions for Green Biotechnology 2025 for his research on microalgae-based bioenergy. His current research explores novel microalgae isolated from environmental samples, microalgal genome engineering, and bioelectrochemical systems for sustainable energy applications.