Woonghee Lee
Ph.D. Student
I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Minnesota. I obtained my M.S. degree jointly from Korea University and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) in 2017. My M.S. thesis, co-advised by Prof. Kang, focused on pore-scale modeling of forward osmosis processes. After earning my M.S. degree, I worked as a research assistant at KIST, conducting field-scale reactive transport modeling involving mineral dissolution at a riverbank filtration site for a year. My current research focuses on reactive transport modeling to enhance our fundamental understanding of the effects of flow and transport on mineral dissolution and precipitation at the fracture scale in the context of mineral dissolution and precipitation and in situ carbon mineralization. I am also involved in an NSF project, collaborating with geobiologists and geochemists to unravel the mechanisms underlying the interaction between mineral dissolution-precipitation and microbial activity and to understand how this interaction creates feedback loops crucial for the habitability of microbes in permanently anoxic fractured-bedrock aquifers.
I was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. In my free time, I like to go for runs, bike rides, and hikes. I also enjoy watching fun TV shows and movies with my wife.