Taekjip Ha, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry, is a world leader in single-molecule biology and intracellular imaging. A physicist by training, Ha uses light to study nature’s nano-machinations. He is known for developing sophisticated physical techniques to manipulate and visualize the movements of single molecules in order to understand basic biological processes. In particular, he focuses on DNA transactions such as replication, recombination, and chromatin assembly, which may eventually lead to answers in addressing cancer and infectious diseases.

He joined Johns Hopkins in 2015 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was the Gutgsell Professor of Physics.