Mentor: Sijin Li
Education:
Swarthmore College – B.A. in Biochemistry and Peace & Conflict Studies, 2022
Awards and Honors
- Swarthmore College, Thomas B. McCabe Scholar
- Swarthmore College, Chemistry and Biochemistry Department Award in Biochemistry, 2022
- Mayer Davidson ’57 Summer Research Fellowship, 2021
- Stanley Adamson Prize in Chemistry, 2021
- Frances Velay Women’s Science Research Fellowship, 2020
- Swarthmore College Chemistry and Biochemistry Department Sophomore Service Award, 2020
- CRC Press Freshman Chemistry Achievement Award, 2019
Research Experience:
- Swarthmore College, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Undergraduate Researcher, March 2020 – Spring 2022
Advisor: Professor Daniela Fera - Cornell Rotation Labs: Klaas van Wijk, Aleksandra Skirycz, Sijin Li
Current Research Activities:
Biological organisms have enzymes capable of carrying out innumerable complex reactions unattainable by synthetic chemical methods, giving rise to vastly diverse metabolites of great value to humans. Plant specialized metabolites are well-known for having important medicinal properties. However, there are a great number of plant natural products believed to exist that have not even been identified yet. Such unknown compounds have the potential to be valuable in drug discovery, making identification of both these compounds and their biosynthetic pathways an important area of investigation. My research seeks to characterize novel biosynthetic enzymes in the medicinal plant Catharanthus roseus by screening enzymes known to be upstream in the production of pharmaceutical compounds, with the goal of discovering biochemical pathways leading to previously unknown natural products.