Lim named Trailblazer in Engineering Fellow

Engineering students are the future of their fields. But at one point, that ‘future‘ turns to ‘now’ and the student becomes the proverbial master of their craft. But some take it a step further and decide to become the teacher to the next group of students and the cycle begins anew.    

Jongwon Lim, a Professor Joe Greene Postdoctoral Fellow under Dean Rashid Bashir, plans to one day trade his current title for professor. To assist him in that journey, he’s received another fellowship title first. 

Lim is among three researchers from The Grainger College of Engineering to be named fellows of Purdue University’s Trailblazers in Engineering program, an initiative to increase both the number and success of engineering faculty across the nation. Fellows attend a four-day workshop that provides them with opportunities for scientific interactions, career-oriented discussions and networking. 

“It felt like having a direct neural link to decades of faculty experience — absorbing their knowledge, wisdom, and practical advice for navigating academia,” said Lim who attended the workshop in late July. He added that he feels incredibly grateful for the opportunity and the program has already had a direct impact. “I’ve significantly revised my CV and cover letter for this faculty job cycle, informed by the guidance and mentorship I received.”  

Trailblazers need to have more than outstanding scholarly achievements. After all, they’re expected to make new discoveries, innovations, social impacts and serve as the role models for the engineers of the future. They’re not only selected on their accolades, but also their potential impact.

However, Lim has already made an impact, especially during his time at Illinois. During his PhD, he developed a novel blood-drying technique that reduces detection times for sepsis and hepatitis pathogens from five days to two and a half hours. As a graduate student in 2022, he co-led a paper on a point-of-care COVID-19 test that detected and differentiated the alpha variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus from earlier strains in saliva samples.   

Besides research, Lim has also participated in the Mavis Future Faculty Fellows Program, the Rising Stars Workshop, is a 2022 Baxter Young Investigator Awardee, and is one of two 2025 Professor Joe Greene Postdoctoral Fellows. All of which, he said, has molded him into who he is today.  

“Both the [postdoctoral] fellowship and my time at Illinois have been instrumental in my academic growth. The fellowship provided the flexibility and resources to pursue high‑risk, high‑reward projects, while the Illinois environment offered invaluable mentorship and interdisciplinary collaboration opportunities. Together, they really helped me reach this stage in my career. I am especially grateful to my advisor, Dean Rashid Bashir, whose unwavering support, guidance, and encouragement have been pivotal in shaping my career.”  

Lim already has ideas for how he’ll teach in the future through interactive lectures, project-based learning to connect theory with application, and more, encouraging students to explore and embrace challenges like he was when he started on his journey years ago.    

“I’m excited to carry forward these lessons and pay them forward to the next generation of researchers."