Academic Training

• 2009 - B.S., Trinity College, Hartford, CT

  • Research Advisor: Janet Morrison

  • Research Topic: Supercritical fluid extraction of pesticides from human hair

• 2014 - Ph.D., University of California, Riverside, CA

  • Research Advisor: Wenwan Zhong

  • Research Topic: High-throughput methods for probing biomacromolecular interactions

• 2014-2016: Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Davis,

  • Research Advisor: Sheila David

  • Research Topic: Affinity purification-mass spectrometry of DNA repair enzymes

What got you interested in Chemistry? I would say that my interest in chemistry came from two sources. The first was a general chemistry presentation that I gave freshman year on Zubbles, colored soap bubbles that would lose color upon application of energy. Through this presentation (and the many physiochemical properties that these bubbles exploited), I realized just how relevant chemistry was to everyday life. The nature of the colored dyes also excited me (no pun intended): As a result, some of my research interests utilize sensors that have some sort of color change upon a change in the environment.

The other major point that got me interested in chemistry was the amazing teachers, professors and mentors that I had throughout the years. Many people consider chemistry (and STEM in general) as this unapproachable, impossible field to study, and these educators figured out ways to tie chemistry back to real-world applications. They served as my inspiration to go into academia, as well as my (sometimes ridiculous) desire to tie chemical processes in the classroom back to real-world applications and/or pop culture (mostly the first, sometimes the second).

Ashby, Jonathan*; Flack, Kenneth*; Jimenez, Luis; Duan, Yaokai; Kareem-Khatib, Abdel; Somlo, George; Wang, Shizen Emily, Cui, Xinping; Zhong, Wenwan. Distribution profiling of circulating micro-RNAs in serum. Anal. Chem. 2014, 86, 9343-9349. (view abstract)