Graduate Student Highlight Questions

Short answer questions:

What year are you in?

I am in my 6th year.

What group are you in?

I am a member of Professor Dongping Zhong’s group.

Where are you from?

I lived in Los Angeles, California before coming to OSU.

Long answer questions:

Describe your research in 200 words or fewer.

My research is at the intersection of biochemistry, femtosecond spectroscopy, and computation to understand how water interacts with the surface of proteins. The system I am currently studying is GroEL, a large nanomachine that encapsulates substrate proteins to either assist in folding or prevent aggregation. The mechanism by which GroEL performs this function is unknown and I am working to determine if there is evidence of the mechanism being mediated by a protein-water interaction.

What have you done in physics that you are most proud of?

I am most proud of the mentorship I have provided for other graduate students in my group and building a transparent and reproducible data analysis system for our group.

What have you done outside of physics that you are most proud of?

I am proud of working as a Precinct Election Official in the 2020 election.

What are your future goals?

Professionally, I plan to work in industry as a Data Scientist once I graduate. I also hope to continue working to improve the transparency and reproducibility of science.