Associate Professor Hoyong Chung is a chemical and biomedical engineering researcher at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and Florida State University. He was recently named a Senior NAI Fellow by the National Academy of Inventors. (Scott Holstein/FAMU-FSU College of Engineering)
The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has named Hoyong Chung as one of four Florida State University faculty members as 2025 NAI Senior Members.
Chung is an associate professor of chemical and biomedical engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and Florida State University.
NAI Senior Members are active faculty, scientists, and administrators who have succeeded in patents, licensing, and commercialization and have produced technologies that have had a real impact on society’s welfare. Senior Members hold over 5,700 U.S. patents and represent over 100 NAI Member Institutions worldwide.
As a faculty member in the joint college’s Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Chung’s work spans traditional engineering disciplines to yield innovative breakthroughs in polymer science. He holds 16 patents.
He is developing renewable alternatives to petroleum-based polymers and polymers with controlled degradability and recyclability. Although some biomass-based polymer feedstocks exist, they often face high costs, limited availability, poor performance and no methods for producing high-value functional materials.
He has focused on developing technologies to overcome those limitations, including a recent innovation synthesizing polycarbonate from biomass lignin and carbon dioxide, resulting in a highly durable and infinitely recyclable polymer. That technology is now exclusively licensed to a biofuel company, which uses it to capitalize on lignin byproducts from biofuel production.
Chung has also developed adhesive polymers capable of bonding to internal organs and skin, delivering drugs to targeted areas with precision, and aiding in disease diagnosis. These advancements are licensed to a biomedical materials company and have potential applications in wound care, drug delivery and diagnostics.
FSU’s 2025 inductees are Chung, Yaacov Petscher, Prashant Singh and Branko Stefanovic. The university now has five Senior Members among its faculty.
“Congratulations to these FSU faculty members recognized by the National Academy of Inventors,” said Vice President for Research Stacey S. Patterson. “Their research is making lasting, positive change outside of the lab. The faculty honored by NAI come from four different colleges across Florida State, which speaks to the wide-ranging excellence and influence of FSU faculty.”
Chung, Petscher, Singh and Stefanovic will join other new NAI Senior Members for an induction ceremony during the NAI annual meeting June 23-26 in Atlanta.
Visit the NAI website for a complete list of Senior Members and more information about the Senior Members program.
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