Hye-Won Grace Shin, PhD

Biography

Hye-Won Grace Shin, Ph.D., is Director of Asian American Community Outreach at the Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MIND) and Director of Korea Relations in the Office of Global Engagement at the University of California, Irvine. She also serves as Executive Director of Somang Society. Shin received her Ph.D. in Chemical & Biochemical Engineering & Materials Sciences from the University of California, Irvine, where her dissertation focused on nitric oxide and GSNO exchange dynamics in healthy and diseased human airways. She has over 30 years of academic and private-sector research experience, with expertise in brain health, Alzheimer's disease, biomedical and social interventions to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in clinical research, and metabolic biomarkers for infection, inflammation, and cancer.

Shin has authored more than 40 publications in peer-reviewed journals and is an inventor on four issued U.S. patents related to asthma inhaler compliance monitoring, bioreactor design for volatile organic gas quantification, and methods to characterize exhaled nitric oxide. Her research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health and other funding agencies, including as principal investigator or co-investigator on multiple grants focused on Alzheimer's disease research participation among Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander populations. She has served as a peer reviewer for numerous scientific journals including the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Journal of Applied Physiology, and European Respiratory Journal, and has reviewed grant proposals for the National Institutes of Health and the Clinical & Translational Science Award Consortium.

Shin has delivered over 80 scientific conference presentations and over 100 invited or community seminars, with particular focus on increasing awareness of Alzheimer's disease and dementia in Asian American communities. She serves on multiple community advisory boards for NIH-funded studies aimed at understanding Alzheimer's disease among Asian American populations and is a founding board member of the UCI Korean-American Alumni Chapter.

Education

• PhD in Chemical & Biochemical Engineering & Materials Sciences, University of California, Irvine, 2001

Distinctions

• KAIST Fellowship, KAIST, 1993-1995
• Honor Student Merit Scholarship, The Korean Institute of Chemical Engineers (KIChE), 1992-1993
• ARTIMAN Biology, Economics, Technology, Arts (B.E.T.A.) Class of 2016, Artiman Ventures, 2016
• President's Distinguished Award (SUMMA CUM LAUDE and Valedictorian in Engineering College), Hongik University, 1993
• Honor Student Merit Scholarship, Hongik University, 1989-1992