Faculty Profile: Assistant Professor of Biology Jae Hur

Professor Jae Hur, an Assistant Professor of Biology at Harvey Mudd, didn’t always know he wanted a career in biology. In fact, he started college as a computer science major! But he was hooked on biology from the moment he realized that no matter how his results turned out, he still loved spending time in biology labs.

His love for working in a lab carried him far. He attended Caltech for undergrad and took two gap years before grad school, during which he worked under a previous Nobel Prize winner in a fruit fly lab at Caltech. These two years were a very formative time for him. It was here that Prof. Hur realized he wanted to have a career in biology research.

Prof. Hur greatly enjoyed his graduate school experience at Harvard, where he worked on freshwater invertebrates. He was also exposed to teaching while TA’ing a course in graduate school. He resolved to teach alongside his research, and set his sights on liberal arts colleges because of their well-rounded characteristics. A technician at the lab Prof. Hur worked in happened to be a Harvey Mudd alum, and his vibrant stories of the experiences he’d had at HMC piqued Prof. Hur’s interest. Soon after, Prof. Hur applied and began teaching at Mudd!

Now, you can find Professor Hur teaching quite a few biology classes, including freshman classes like BIOL 023 (Biology Lab) and BIOL 052 (Introduction to Biology). Outside of classes, he also runs a lab centered around the molecular and cell biology of aging, especially in fruit flies. When he’s not at HMC, he loves playing video games and spending time with his kids, who will hopefully soon be old enough to go hiking and camping with him!

Prof. Hur isn’t planning on leaving HMC anytime soon. He loves the fundamental attitude and motivation of Mudders, and he doesn’t have to convince students here that science is interesting, because they already want to learn!