Department: Chemistry Faculty Adviser: David MacMillan Year of Study: G2 Undergraduate School: Elon University Undergraduate Major: Chemistry
Hey! I'm originally from West Haven, CT, but have mainly lived in North Carolina and Maryland for the past five years. I'm passionate about the field of chemical biology and am excited to talk more about it! One hobby that I recently picked up is pickleball. I'm not very good but still have a fun time playing. Most of my experience in research has been at the intersection of chemistry and biology. As an undergrad, this ranged from developing chemoresistant cell line models to understanding in vitro structure-function relations to synthesizing complex organic molecules.
I love music and was a marching percussionist for nine years.
I work in the field of chemical biology, which is focused on developing new chemical tools to study biology. I'm particularly interested in a technique called proximity labeling, which allows us to understand how biomolecules interact with one another in a cell. This is important because a lot of biological phenomena in both healthy and diseased states can be explained through these biomolecule-biomolecule interactions. In general, proximity labeling works by first bringing either a metal catalyst or an enzyme close to the biomolecule of interest. This catalyst or enzyme will then label only the nearby biomolecules, which we can then isolate and identify. Specifically, I'm developing a new way to understand RNA-protein interactions from the perspective of RNA. My favorite part about this project is how interdisciplinary it is. A day might include a morning synthesizing a new molecule and an afternoon working on applying that molecule to understanding cancer biology.
Interested in participating in Summer 2027 ReMatch+ program.
