My third year of college was the fastest yet, but here were some of my favorite things I listened to and read:

Autumn 2022

This quarter I took BIOC 450 (Honors Biochemistry), IMMUN 441 (Introductory Immunology), and CSE 160 (Introductory Data Programming).

finally! advanced classes

This quarter was my first taking all classes I was interested in (i.e., not just introductory ones), and I loved it. I found myself less stressed (and thus able to be more social and balanced) when taking classes I’m genuinely interested in and not just taking to access the higher electives. At left is the picture of the study spot I frequented this quarter at Suzzallo library. 

Introduction to Immunology was a fascinating class. I loved learning about the basics of the innate and adaptive immune systems as well as what happens when things go wrong (e.g., allergy, autoimmune disease) and how understanding the immune system can help therapeutically (e.g., transplantation, cancer immunotherapies). This class definitely reinforced my desire to pursue a research career in an immunology or biomedical-related field.

artifact: abstracting science

I also loved my 25-person Honors Biochemistry class this quarter. We got to read and discuss scientific articles frequently, deepening our understanding of biochemistry beyond that of a typical lecture course. I really enjoyed all of the writing assignments in the class too, including midterm and final papers, as this was the first time I was prompted to actually critique a published article (a preview for the publishing peer review process!). The artifact I want to remember the most was the graphical abstract I made for Hoppins et al. 2011 on mitochondrial fusion. The assignment was to make a picture that represents the abstract and central point of the article, and my abstract was voted “most aesthetically pleasing” by my classmates.

Winter 2023

This quarter I took Honors Biochemistry (BIOC 451), Molecular Biology of Viruses (MICROM 450), and Intro to Probability and Statistics (QSCI 381).

cold weather activities to cool the burnout

This January was super grueling because I had to spend tons of time working on applications for summer internships and scholarships (like the Goldwater Scholarship which I was honored to be nominated for by UW) on top of school and research. February was a bit better, but school was pretty intense this quarter. Turns out that memorizing metabolic pathways is pretty difficult. The only thing that saved me from getting burnt this quarter out was getting out into nature. I did some cross country, downhill, and backcountry skiing this quarter with friends (some views pictured above) that truly helped me keep my motivation to do everything else.

artifact: an apt project

I'm proud of a lot of things I accomplished this quarter, but in the spirit of highlighting the things that won't make it onto my CV, I wanted to highlight my final project for my Honors Biochemistry class. I made a video with two other people on aptamers, short nucleic acids with complex secondary structures that confer lots of bioengineering capabilities. I had a lot of fun researching the topic and drawing all the pictures for the video, which really confirmed for me how much I enjoy science communication.

Spring 2023

This quarter I took the last quarter of Biochemistry (BIOC 442), Intermediate Data Programming (CSE 163), Philosophy of AI (HONORS 222), and an Honors Peer Educator Seminar (HONORS 397).
Wow! This quarter went by incredibly fast. I can't believe I'm 3/4 done with college. I was super busy this quarter (18 credits tends to do that...), but not to the point of being too overwhelmed because I enjoyed everything I was doing and have also improved my time management skills quite a bit. I have too many things to give in-depth artifacts for them all, but here are the things that I want to remember:
  • I was extremely honored to be recognized as a Goldwater Scholar, one of the five from UW this year. This award really highlights my commitment to pursuing a career in scientific research, something that has been crystallizing essentially my entire undergraduate experience.
  • I got the incredible chance to attend the Stanford Research Conference in Palo Alto in April, where I was awarded a best poster award for experimental life sciences (below)!
  • Husky Running Club hosted our first Paws for a Cause charity 5k race in April after a three year hiatus! 
  • I presented some of the exciting results I got this quarter (96 well plate teaser above) at the UW Undergraduate Research Symposium in May.
  •  My club, Biology Students for Equity was awarded the Resilience and Compassion Seed Grant from the Resilience Lab and CSF, a grant that I helped write as an officer for the club!
  • I completed my second Experiential Learning activity for being an Undergraduate Research Leader--read more about that here.

​artifact: interdisciplinary but in a personal way

This quarter I took an HONORS-prefix science class, Philosophy of AI, with Jared Moore, which on the surface doesn't have much to do with exactly what I'm interested in (Biochemistry), but in the spirit of interdisciplinary thinking, I connected it. The class covered everything from the philosophy of morality and consciousness to aspects of AI hardware and software. Using the lens of the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, I argued that AI is currently used for normal scientific discoveries but could conceivably lead to theoretical scientific discoveries by uncovering anomalies. I evaluated these claims in the context of a particular scientific area, the protein folding problem in biochemistry (and AlphaFold2's contributions), but these arguments could conceivably apply to many fields of contemporary science. Read my final paper here!

Summer 2023

This "quarter" I had the opportunity to do a research internship in Hannover, Germany through the German Academic Exchange Service's Research Internships in Science and Engineering (DAAD RISE) program.

artifact: (a)broadening my perspectives

I spent this past summer studying cytoskeletal protein dynamics at the Institute for Biophysical Chemistry at Hannover Medical School in Hannover, a city of about 700,000 in northern Germany. Moving to Germany thankfully went very smoothly because my graduate student mentor and PI both helped me find student housing on-campus and handled various bureaucratic onboarding obstacles. It took a bit longer for me to get used to the lab culture—I didn’t realize how different the research working environment would be in Germany. My favorite difference: in my lab in Hannover, all of the students and post-docs go to the mensa (canteen) together every day to eat lunch. During these lovely (often hour-long) lunches, I learned so many things about German culture (and food). From learning about the German dish mett to going through Harry Potter trivia, these lunches were some of my favorite memories from the lab.

A typical day of my internship started with walking to the lab from my apartment, grabbing a cup of coffee and settling in, checking in with my mentor, and organizing my day. I often conducted an experiment in the morning before lunch. Throughout the internship, I had the chance to do a number of techniques, including PCR mutagenesis, protein purification, biophysical assays, microscopy, and molecular dynamics. In the afternoon, I would either conduct another experiment or just analyze data and read the literature. I usually worked from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but there were some days where I came/left earlier/later depending on the timing required in the wet lab. After work, I usually went on a run around the many green spaces of Hannover (called “the garden city” because of how many parks it has) or hung out with the other interns located in Hannover. I loved the city’s walkability and public transport, even in the suburb where the medical school was located; I'm going to miss this in the US!

Outside of the lab, some of my favorite moments this summer came from traveling around Germany and Europe on the weekends. The DAAD RISE meeting in Heidelberg was definitely a highlight; it was so fun to explore the city with new intern friends located across Germany. I traveled almost every weekend of the 13 weeks that I was in Germany; I saw so many cities, including Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Prague, and Bruges. I cannot emphasize how transformative traveling around all of these European cities was. I loved traveling via train, too. However, a big irony about German trains, and counter to the idea of German efficiency, is that the Deutsche Bahn almost always has delays (in an especially odd case, once my train was delayed by 45 minutes because there were kids taking selfies on the track).

Of course, working in a foreign country 5,000 miles from home wasn’t always easy. There were language barriers in navigating the suburb I lived in; I learned some basics on Duolingo before I went, but it's a hard language! It was also sometimes difficult to stay positive when I inevitably make mistakes. For me, one of these moments happened when I accidentally boiled a protein gel I was staining in Coomassie; the gel exploded and blue dye splattered all over the fume hood (picture below). It was pretty humbling, but because of that and many other experiences during my internship, I think I am becoming a more resilient and thoughtful person. It helped to remember that this internship was first and foremost a learning opportunity for me both academically and personally, and I can confidently say that this experience challenged and expanded my viewpoints and assumptions while enabling me to learn a lot of cool science, which you can read about in more detail here.