I am honored to have had the opportunity to lead the 8th iteration of an annual student-run symposium - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Biomolecular Galaxy. This event was a resounding success, featuring 51 exceptional poster presentations and 19 engaging oral presentations. The symposium brought together talented graduate students from eight different universities. Over the course of two days, we witnessed outstanding contributions and discussions across the vast field of biophysics. I greatly appreciate everyone's efforts in making the symposium a success. In particular, I thank Dr. Jay T. Groves for taking the time and traveling to the symposium for the keynote address. Further, without the organization, efforts, and grit of my fellow graduate students on the planning committee the symposium would not have been half of what it was this year. Thank you.

It was a pleasure to be selected to join the 2022 Gordan Research Conference (and GRS) on Biointerface Science.

The conference's theme - Functional Assemblies and Biomolecular Information Processing - brought together an, in my view, exciting group of researchers. It was an incredible experience to interact with members of the research committee, who had intimate knowledge my research's techniques and nuisances. 

I express gratatude to all the presenters for sharing their results and ideas. Further, I thank everyone who I got to interact with during the poster sessions. Your thoughts and advice were stimulating and I look forward to getting back to the lab to bring them to life.

I am excited to share that I have been awarded an extension to my T32 training fellowship. This funding will carry me into Aug of 2023. I am looking forward to utilizing this opportunity to  conduct rigorous biophysical research and continue to share my research experiences with the T32 community here at Purdue (and research community at large).

A big thank you to my advisor and graduate committee for their guidance over the last year. Your support continues to help advance my research career. Thank you.

I enjoyed participating in and sharing my research via a poster at the Garnet E. Peck Symposium. The expertise in immunology was a big shift for me compared to my typical biophysical community. It was exciting to communicate with colleagues with different specializations. 

I attended and presented a research poster at the American Chemical Society (ACS) national meeting in San Diego, California, USA. Picture above is a group photo of the students and faculty advisor from Heidelberg, University (Tiffin, OH) who stopped by to hear about my most recent research.

Today I defended an original research idea centered around quantifying RuBisCo activity, at the single-cell level, using a ratiometric NADPH reporter and then correlate RuBisCo activity to carboxysome ultrastructure using cryo-electron tomography.

I'm excited by my advance to candidacy and increased ability to focus on my dissertation research.

Very excited to have been able to complete the Purdue half marathon with limited training and only my general fitness (or lack there of) to rely on. I give a big thank you to the pace runners for who I greatly relied on to kept me at a constant (slow) pace.

Results Link (external website)

In the Spring of 2021, I was awarded a position as a trainee of Purdue's NIH funded T32 Training Program in Molecular Biophysics.

Developed and delivered a 45 minute presentation on my projected PhD work. Successfully coordinated virtual and in-person elements to the meeting. I was excited to be able to adequately field questions from my committee. Furthermore, I'm looking forward to researching new areas of interest brought up by my committee.

Thank you to each of my committee members: Dr. Philip Low, Dr. Seung-Oe Lim, and Dr. Fang Huang. And a big thanks to my advisor: Dr. Shalini Low-Nam.

Purdue's chemistry graduate program has three primary requirements:

1. Passing 5 cumulative exams during monthly exam periods over the course of the first 4 semesters.
2. Passing an oral candidacy exam proctored by my committee members. This exam is call the Original Proposal or OP, as the exam is the defense of an original research idea. Particular to Purdue's Chemistry department is the requirement to defend a research topic unrelated one's dissertation research.
3. Defending an original research dissertation.

In February, I finished passing my cumulative exams after only just beginning my 2nd semester.

The Low-Nam lab received and had install our main experimental tool, a modular microscope system from Nikon. 

For my 23rd birthday, I challenged by older brother, John, to run a marathon with me. After 8 loops around a ~3 mile course we both finished!

Results PDF

I'm very excited to have joined the Lab of Dr. Shalini T. Low-Nam. She is a new faculty member in the Chemistry Department of Purdue University - Link to her Research Interests.