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McNair Scholar Ekram Towsif ’21 works as a Research Assistant in Professor Fred Ellis’ lab. He is a triple major in CIS, Physics, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry who was born in Chittagong, Bangladesh but grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Ekram chose to major in CIS because the program gave him the opportunity to solve interdisciplinary … Read more

Alex Poppel BA ’20 MA ’21 double majored in CIS and Molecular Biology and Biochemistry with a minor in Molecular Biophysics. He is currently working in Professor Amy MacQueen’s lab. Poppel chose to major in CIS because he liked the strong sense of community within the major, and found that learning about different branches of … Read more

Nour-SaÏda Harzallah ‘21 is a triple major in CIS, Physics, and Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. She grew up in the coastal city of Monastir in Tunisia and came to Wesleyan after graduating from Pioneer High School of Monastir. She works as a Research Assistant in Professor Francis Starr’s lab. Never having felt like her interests … Read more

Simon Van Deursen ‘22 is a double major in CIS and Molecular Biology and Biochemistry who works as a Research Assistant in Professor Alison O’Neil’s lab. He grew up in San Anselmo, California and is a member of the Ski and Snowboard team at Wesleyan. He decided to elect a major in CIS because the … Read more

What are you doing for your research project? My research in the Calter lab is focused on both the synthesis of analogs of rocaglamide—a natural anti-cancer compound—and the use of molecular dynamics to predict binding energies of different analogs to their cellular targets. Why did you choose to major in CIS? I find myself at … Read more

What are you doing for your research project? Chien is involved in an inorganic chemistry lab here at Wesleyan. They look at metals and their complexes, and strive to better understand contrast agents of MRIs–which helps enhance imaging to better look at the brain, such as to see if there is a tumor. In the … Read more

Update: In May, 2020, Abe won a Fulbright grant to Finland for 2020-2021 to pursue a Master’s degree in Computational Engineering and Technical Physics at the Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT). What are you doing for your research project? I’ve spent the last few years working on a computational biophysics project, studying DNA junction structure … Read more

What are you doing for your research project? Before, I participated in research utilizing single-molecule Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (smFRET) to observe the dynamics of Holliday junction, which is a cross-like structure that contains four DNA double-strands joined together. By combining FRET, which is valued for its distance sensitivity and utility in real-time observation, with … Read more

  What are you doing for your research project? For my research project, I am studying a protein called Msh4. First, I created 9 strains of budding yeast in which specific amino acids of Msh4 were altered. Now, I am seeing if those alterations made a functional impact. In doing so, my research project investigates … Read more