Herchel Smith research fellows named

The third annual Herchel Smith Harvard Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships have been granted to 44 Harvard College students. This year marks the second for a full cohort of fellows – and an increase of 50 percent from 2005.

The program is designed to generously support promising, creative young undergraduate scientists in a formative, self-designed laboratory experience at the early stages of their academic life during 10 weeks of the summer.

The proposals are subjected to a rigorous, two-tiered review and selection process, first by one of three faculty panels in the natural, physical, or applied/engineering sciences, and then by an interdisciplinary selection committee. From 121 applicants, these 44 fellows represent a significantly broad range of scientific interests at Harvard College. Sixteen of the recipients have chosen international destinations to conduct their research projects.

This year’s Herchel Smith Fellowship recipients, including their proposals, research advisers, and host institutions, are as follows:

Monica Allen ’09 (chemistry/physics), mapping martensitic transformation temperatures in ternary Ni-Ti-Zr alloys. Joost Vlassak, Harvard University

Meaghan Beattie ’08 (chemistry), investigating new systems of organo-catalytic asymmetric synthesis. Steven Ley, University of Cambridge, England

Sarah Bourne ’08 (biology), molecular signals in the mature mouse brain that prevent neuroregeneration. Dong Feng Chen, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Boston

Steven Byrnes ’07 (physics), transport properties of electrons and spins through novel semiconductor quantum nanostructures. Venkatesh Narayanamurti, Harvard University

Can Cenik ’08 (applied mathematics), RNAi screening of C. elegans genome to investigate redundancy of putative paralogs. Julie Ahringer, University of Cambridge, England

Yuyin Chen ’08 (chemistry/physics), mass fabrication of resonant optical antennas with DNA nanotechnology. William Shih, Harvard University

Stanley Chiang ’09 (chemistry/physics), quantum computation by a surface acoustic wave-based processor. Christopher Ford, University of Cambridge, England

Daniel Choi ’08 (biochemistry), synthesis of glycodendriprotein antigens recognized by 2G12, a broadly neutralizing HIV-1 antibody. Ben Davis, University of Oxford, England

Katharine Clapham ’08 (biochemistry), regulation of ß-oxidation in Bacillus suibtilis. Diego de Mendoza, Instituto de Biología y Celular de Rosario, Argentina

Victoria Clark ’08 (biochemistry), the role of Mesenchymal stem cells in cancer progression and their potential use as vehicles for therapeutic gene delivery. Osvaldo Podhajcer, University of Buenos Aires

Lin Cong ’09 (physics), entropic Bell-Renyi inequality in XXZ spin chains. Leong-Chuan Kwek, National University of Singapore

Jonathan Cunningham ’08 (biochemistry), diversity-oriented synthesis and biological screening of alkaloid small molecules. Stuart Schreiber, Harvard University

Bradford Diephuis ’08 (engineering), artificial intelligence methods for grid computing. David Parkes, Harvard University

Eric Fritz ’08 (chemistry), methods for the synthesis of izidine alkaloids. Bernhard Breit, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, Germany

Julie Girard ’07 (biochemistry), functional analysis of genes affecting microtubule stability in C. elegans embryos. Anthony Hyman, Max Planck Institute, Dresden, Germany

Michael Gladstone ’09 (biochemistry), in vivo and in vitro observation of cytokines for use in HIV-1 vaccine. Norman Letvin, Harvard Medical School (HMS)

Sharon Grossman ’08 (biochemistry), effect of phosphorylation on the binding affinity of Pho4 for DNA. Erin O’Shea, Harvard University

Gaurav Gulati ’08 (biology), purification and crystallization of the DnaA protein constructs in Staphylococcus aureus. David Jeruzalmi, Harvard University

Andrew Howe ’08 (chemistry), analysis of organic reactions in ionic liquids. Jason Harper, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Divya Jayaraman ’08 (biochemistry), biochemical analysis of cell division, DNA repair, and genomic stability. Matthew Michael, Harvard University

Andrea Jonas ’08 (chemistry/physics), development of functional neural networks in Drosphila. Veronica Rondrigues, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore, India

Hasan Korre ’09 (physics), development of a novel magnetic force microscope. Jennifer Hoffman, Harvard University

Richard Kronfol ’08 (biochemistry), characterizing the effects of S-nitrosylation on endothelial nitric oxide synthase. Thomas Michel, HMS

Arthur Lee ’07-08 (biology), identification and characterization of copy number variants on the human X chromosome. Charles Lee, HMS

Benjamin Lee ’08 (biology), observational report and mechanistic studies of traditional Chinese herbal medicines for epilepsy. Steven Schachter, HMS

Albert Li ’09 (biochemistry), mechanisms of TRPV1 channel activity. Rachelle Gaudet, Harvard University

Amanda Mason ’09 (biochemistry), role of PRLs in metastatic colon cancer. Adrienne Cox, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Matthew McFarlane ’08 (biochemistry), sonic hedgehog (Shh) receptors and binding proteins. Andrew McMahon, Harvard University

Natasha Novikov ’07 (biochemistry), contribution of changes in gene expression to synapse formation. Joshua Sanes, Harvard University

Allen Pope ’08 (chemistry), stability of bacteriogenic uraninite to chemical and biological oxidative dissolution. Rizlan Bencheikh-Latmani, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland

Susan Putnins ’08 (biology), expression of PNMT under hypoxic stress. Dona Lee Wong, HMS

Yakir Reshef ’09 (chemistry/physics), evolution, diversity, and catalytic mechanism of metal-dependent beta-lactamase. Alejandro Vila, University of Rosario, Argentina

Michael Segal ’09 (biochemistry), gene expression in the Hog1 pathway. Erin O’Shea, Harvard University

Shrenik Shah ’09 (mathematics), application of pseudorandom generators to derandomization of the complexity class RL. Salil Vadhan, Harvard University

Jie Tang ’08 (computer science), mechanisms for grid computation scheduling. David Parkes, Harvard University

Ye Tao ’09 (biochemistry), dynamic combinatorial synthesis using ionic and enzymatic templates. Olaf Ramström, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

Parvinder Thiara ’07 (chemistry), total synthesis utilizing asymmetrically catalyzed N-acyliminium Pictet-Spengler-type cyclizations. Eric Jacobsen, Harvard University

Grace Tiao ’08 (history of science), role of ID3 protein in the maintenance of skeletal muscle stem cells. Andrew Lassar, HMS

Cindy Ung ’09 (biochemistry), knockdown of ZFR-SBP by siRNA and functional consequences on T cell activation. Oreste Acuto, University of Oxford, England

Mark Wagner ’08 (engineering science), human visual discrimination and contextual integration. Paul Sajda, Columbia University

Xiao Wang ’09 (biology), role of protein quaternary structure in protein function and disease. Hilal Lashuel, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland

Norman Yao ’09 (physics), analysis of tensor characteristics of actin networks in cells due to stresses and strains. David Weitz, Harvard University

Jimmy Yang ’09 (biochemistry), investigation of novel small-molecule drug therapies on laboratory and resistant malaria strains. Jon Clardy, HMS

Rocksheng Zhong ’08 (psychology), microarray studies in IBMPFD. Virginia Kimonis, HMS