Faculty Profiles

My research focuses on the use of computational methods to study problems of protein biophysics, especially in proteins that are involved in membraneless organelles and aging diseases. The primary method that I use to study these problems is coarse-grained molecular dynamics which allows for the motion of protein aggregates to be studied at length and time-scales needed to study these phenomena. I graduated from the University of Oregon with a double major in Chemistry and Physics. During my time as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I studied theory and method development of coarse-grained models. I was specifically interested in the theories of interpretation of coarse-grained and developed a method for interpreting observables in coarse-grained models. While at the National Institutes of Health during my postdoc, I started to become interested in using coarse-grained models of intrinsically disordered proteins. Intrinsically disordered proteins play an essential role in protein aggregates and many of these proteins which aggregate also form solid plaques which occur patients of aging diseases. At Reed, I will teaching be General Chemistry (Chem 101 and 102) and Chemical Thermodynamics (Chem 332). I am also excited to start a start a research group to help teach students about the power and joy of computational chemistry.