Dr. Jihyun F. Kim is a leading scientist in microbial genomics, systems/synthetic biology, and microbiome research. He is the Yonsei Lee Youn Jae Fellow Professor and Director of the Microbiome Initiative at Yonsei University. After earning his B.S. and M.S. at Seoul National University, he completed his Ph.D. at Cornell University in 1997, pioneering research on fire blight pathogenicity. He began his career at KRIBB in 2000 and later directed Korea’s Strategic Initiative for Microbiomes in Agriculture and Food (2014–2022). At Yonsei since 2012, he held key leadership roles. Widely published in top journals, he is a member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology and recipient of prestigious national/academic awards.