Thaiesha A. Wright, Ph.D.

Professor

Professor Wright began her scientific career by earning his B.S. in Chemistry from Spelman College in 2015. While at Spelman, she worked under the guidance of Dr. Letye Winfield synthesizing guanidine-based derivatives for breast and ovarian cancer treatment. In 2020, Dr. Wright received her doctoral degree in chemistry and biochemistry from Miami University, where she designed, synthesized, and tested protein-polymer bioconjugates for use in biofuel production. Dr. Wright then moved to University of Colorado Boulder as a chancellor's postdoctoral fellow and UCSD as a president's postdoctoral fellow where she studied enzyme immobilization and cellular engineering, respectively. Dr. Wright joined the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles in the department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in 2022. Her laboratory works to better understand and exploit the interface of biology and materials science for industrial, agricultural, and biomedical applications. 

Berke Çalbaş

Graduate Student

Berke joined the lab in September 2022 after completing a Bachelor of Science in bioengineering at UCLA. Prior to joining the lab, he contributed to frontier motor imagery brain-computer interface research. He is currently working with Dr. Wright to explore the application of polymer vesicles in sustainable agriculture. In his free time, he enjoys exploring diverse topics and unwinding by watching informative content on YouTube.

Ashley Keobounnam 

Graduate Student

Ashley Keobounnam is a first-year Ph.D. student and completed her B.S. in biology from Fresno State University. Prior to joining the lab, her research focused on using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition to modify the properties of naturally derived polymers used in biomedical tools, devices, and applications. She is currently working to use polymer-based biomaterials for controlled drug delivery and to prevent insulin aggregation. In my free time, I enjoy trying new recipes, reading, painting, and playing the Sims 4. 

Christine Tang

Graduate Student

Christine is a first-year Chemical Engineering Ph.D. student and completed her B.S. in Nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego. Her interest is in improving medical technology through the use of nanoparticles and polymers. She enjoys arts and crafts in her free time.

Christopher Korban 

Undergraduate Student

Christopher Korban is a third year Bioengineering major with a passion in pharmaceutical development, med-tech and medical devices, and therapeutic agent deployment using innovative drug delivery methods. He has interests in exploring the intersection between business and engineering within the global pharmaceutical industry and plans to use his research experience and technical background to leverage industry growth within very large pharmaceutical companies as well as emerging venture biotech startups.  He has experience working with electrochemical sensing and implantable circuitry to detect biomarkers with the UCLA I2BL lab and is hoping to also investigate mechanisms of action of polymersomes in drug delivery systems through specific protein polymer bioconjugation pathways for application to Cancer and Diabetic therapeutics in the Wright lab. He also enjoys playing basketball, going surfing, and cooking in his free time.

Jade Doratan 

Undergraduate Student

Jade is currently a second-year chemical engineering student at UCLA. She is interested in researching the applications of protein-polymer conjugation on pharmaceuticals, specifically its effects on shelf life and on dosage frequency. To this end, she hopes to explore various techniques in the lab and find one (or several) that facilitate her research interest. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends, painting, baking, and finding ways to bring others joy.