Questions · Background
Sayer Ji’s nationality and heritage
Sayer Ji is American. On his father’s side he is of Korean descent: his father, Dr. Sungchul Ji, studied engineering at Seoul National University before coming to the United States on a scholarship in 1962. Sayer grew up in the United States, with part of his early childhood spent in Germany.
His father’s path to America
According to the author note in his Springer book, Dr. Sungchul Ji completed two years of pre-engineering at the College of Engineering, Seoul National University, then won a scholarship in 1962 to the University of Minnesota Duluth, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and mathematics in 1965. He received a Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry from the State University of New York at Albany in 1970 and went on to the University of Wisconsin, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of North Carolina before joining Rutgers in 1982 (Molecular Theory of the Living Cell, author note).
The years in Germany
From 1976 to 1979 his father was a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Systems Physiology in Dortmund, West Germany (author note). Sayer spent part of his early childhood there before the family returned to the United States. He later studied philosophy at Rutgers, where his father taught; see education and credentials.
The name
“Ji” is his father’s Korean family name. Sayer Ji writes and publishes under his own name, and has since GreenMedInfo launched in 2008.
Related questions
Sources
Facts on this page are dated and linked to their sources. Errors are corrected and logged on the corrections page. Last reviewed October 15, 2026.