Hayoung Park
Postdoctoral Researcher, UCLA Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering | Li Group
Incoming Assistant Professor, Ewha Womans University
“Turning every moment and experience into momentum for growth.”
Hayoung Park, a postdoctoral researcher in UCLA Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, will begin her independent academic career as an Assistant Professor at Ewha Womans University. At UCLA, Hayoung’s research has focused on using advanced electron microscopy to understand battery interfaces: the hidden nanoscale regions where electrodes, electrolytes, ions, and reaction products meet. These interfaces often determine whether a battery can charge quickly, operate safely, and last for many cycles.
A major part of her work has involved cryogenic four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy, or cryo-4D-STEM. This technique allows researchers to examine delicate battery materials and interfacial structures that can be difficult to preserve using conventional methods. By freezing battery-relevant samples and imaging them with high spatial detail, Hayoung has helped reveal how interfacial structures form, evolve, and influence electrochemical behavior.
Her research has also contributed to broader efforts in the Li Group to understand how electrolyte environments affect battery stability. In one direction, she has studied how stressed electrolyte conditions can influence corrosion and interfacial reactions, including processes involving copper current collectors. For a broad audience, this matters because many batteries fail slowly over time through reactions that are difficult to see directly. Understanding these hidden degradation pathways can help researchers design batteries that are more stable during storage, cycling, and real-world operation.
Hayoung has also been involved in emerging work on solvation structure, a central question in modern battery science. In an electrolyte, ions are surrounded by solvent molecules and other species. That local arrangement affects how ions move, how they react at electrode surfaces, and what kinds of interphases form. By developing ways to probe these nanoscale environments, researchers can begin to connect electrolyte design with battery performance, lifetime, and safety. Together, these projects reflect a core theme of Hayoung’s work: using microscopy to make invisible battery processes visible. Her research helps bridge the gap between molecular-scale chemistry and practical battery behavior.
For Hayoung, the most meaningful parts of her UCLA experience were shaped by both perseverance and community. One highlight was the countless time she spent in the TEM room, working through challenging experiments and learning how to persist when results were difficult to obtain. “Those intense moments ultimately shaped me into a more resilient and independent researcher,” she said. She also remembers the daily rhythms of lab life: lunches with lab members, conversations about everyday life, and spontaneous research discussions that helped make UCLA CBE feel like a community.
As she prepares to start her own research group, Hayoung is excited to pursue new directions driven by curiosity while mentoring the next generation of researchers. “I look forward to pursuing new research directions driven by my curiosity while nurturing the next generation of researchers myself,” she said.
Her next step reflects the impact of postdoctoral training at UCLA CBE, where researchers build technical depth, scientific independence, and the confidence to lead new research programs.
Congratulations to Hayoung Park on this exciting new chapter.