Sunghee Yun (He/Him)

Co-Founder & CTO @ Erudio Bio, Inc., Co-Founder & Leader & Chair of Silicon Valley AI Nexus (K-PAI Nexus), Advisor @ Korean American Semiconductor Professional Alliance (KASPA), CGO / Global Managing Partner @ LULUMEDIC, KFAS-Salzburg Global Leadership Initiative Fellow @ Salzburg Global Seminar, AI-Korean Medicine Integration Initiative Task Force Member @ The Association of Korean Medicine, Director of AI Semiconductor @ K-BioX, Visiting Professor @ Sogang University, Advisory Professor @ DGIST, Global Advisory Board Member @ Innovative Future Brain-Inspired Intelligence System Semiconductor of Sogang University, and Network Expert @ Gerson Lehrman Group

Abstract

This talk traces a two-decade path across three technological revolutions — from convex optimization and semiconductor circuit design, through large-scale Machine Learning (ML) at Amazon and industrial AI, to the founding and building of an AI-powered biotech company developing cancer diagnostics. It is less a linear success story than a story of pivots: the moments when a problem in one field turned out to be the key to another, and when skills built for one industry quietly became the foundation for the next. The throughline is a conviction that the most interesting and valuable work increasingly happens not inside any single discipline, but in the spaces where disciplines collide — where mathematics meets biology, where Silicon Valley engineering meets the clinic, and where rigorous theory meets the messy realities of markets, manufacturing, and medicine. The aim is to show, concretely, what it actually looks like to build a life and a career at that intersection.

From that personal arc, the talk opens up to the larger landscape these students are stepping into. We will look honestly at where Artificial Intelligence (AI) actually stands today — beyond the headlines and the hype — and at how the convergence of AI and biotechnology is reshaping drug discovery, diagnostics, and precision medicine. From protein-structure breakthroughs like AlphaFold to the rise of agentic AI systems, we will examine what is genuinely working, what remains hard, and why this particular moment of convergence is drawing so much talent and capital. Drawing on direct experience at Erudio Bio, the K-PAI Nexus community in Silicon Valley, and collaborations spanning the US and Korea, the discussion connects the technology to the business models, partnerships, and ecosystems that turn research into real-world impact.

Finally, the talk turns to the students themselves and the careers ahead of them. With the group about to walk the floor at BIO USA, the goal is to offer a practical, grounded field guide: how to read the real map of opportunity in the AI-bio era, which skills and mindsets compound over a career, and why a cross-disciplinary edge — paired with curiosity, intellectual honesty, and a sense of meaning beyond the technology — may be the most durable advantage of all. The session is designed to be interactive, closing with open discussion and Q&A so that students at every level, from undergraduate to PhD, can ask the questions most relevant to their own paths.