Herchel Smith Fellowship awardees named

The following undergraduates have been selected as winners of the 2007 Herchel Smith Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship. The fellowship aims to support academically motivated Harvard undergraduates in pursuit of personally significant scientific research experiences during the summer or on a leave of absence. The scholarships will support research projects undertaken with an established research center or laboratory (in the United States or abroad) with an eye to preparing recipients for competitive postgraduate fellowships and/or postgraduate study toward a Ph.D. or the equivalent in computer science, mathematics, the natural sciences, and the physical sciences. These students will pursue their research projects at domestic and international laboratories.

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

Maria Baryakhtar ’10 (physics and mathematics), optimizing techniques of stored light in ensembles of rubidium atoms; Ronald Walsworth, Harvard University

Eugene Beh ’09 (chemical and physical biology), synthesis of precursors for atomic layer deposition; Roy Gordon, Harvard University

Alexander Bick ’10 (engineering sciences), development of a microfluidic device for disease diagnosis in resource-limited settings; Patrick Tabeling, Ecole Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles (Paris)

Samuel Bjork ’09 (chemical and physical biology), molecular genetics of cellulose degradation and ethanol production by Clostridium phytofermentans; George Church, Harvard Medical School (HMS)

Neel Butala ’09 (economics), “A Molecular Analysis of Blood-Brain Barrier Development”; Andy McMahon, Harvard University

Peter Cai ’10 (molecular and cellular biology), protocadherin gene regulation in vitro and in vivo and neural connectivity; Tom Maniatis, Harvard University

Christoper Chen ’10 (chemical and physical biology), study of antibiotic resistance in gram-negative bacteria via elucidation of the cell wall degradation pathway; Dan Kahne, Harvard University

Tzu-Ying Chuang ’10 (chemical and physical biology), study of the role of glomulin (Glmn), the gene mutated in glomuvenous malformations (GVM); Miikka Vikkula/Université Catholique de Louvain, Christian de Duve Institute of Cellular Pathology

Lin Cong ’09 (physics and math), “Modeling of Biological Systems: 1) Protein-DNA Interaction 2) Protein Folding and Mis-folding”; Mike Payne; Cavendish Lab, University of Cambridge

Elena Fradkov ’10 (molecular and cellular biology), research to determine the immunological mechanism by which the mother does not reject the fetus; Jack Strominger, Harvard University

Aaron Garcia ’09 (chemical and physical biology), investigating the molecular basis of circadian rhythms in mosquito vectors of tropical diseases using clock gene RNA probes; Alexandre Peixoto, Oswald Cruz Institute, Rio de Janeiro

Michael Gladstone ’09 (biochemical sciences), use of DNA plasmid IL-21 as an HIV vaccine adjuvant; Norm Letvin, Harvard University

Mihir Gupta ’10 (chemical and physical biology), identifying the genes causing colorectal cancer in sleeping beauty transposon system mouse model; David Largaespada, University of Minnesota

Ognjen Ilic ’09 (physics), optical atom trapping and transporting; Markus Greiner, Harvard University, and Michael Koehl, Cambridge University, United Kingdom

Stefan Kathman ’09 (chemistry), synthesis of the C ring of taxol from the Wieland-Miescher ketone; Joelle Prunet, Ecole Polytechnique

Nour Kibbi ’10 (history of science), investigating the distribution of the J2 haplogroup on Y chromosomes in the Levant and North Africa; Pierre Zalloua, Lebanese American University

Tim Kovachy ’09 (physics and math), using atom interferometry to test general relativity; Mark Kasevich, Stanford University

Aaron Kuan ’09 (physics/music), “Virtual Violins: Physical and Psychoacoustical Perspectives on Violin Acoustics”; Jim Woodhouse, Cambridge University

Warakorn Kulalert ’10 (molecular and cellular biology), mTOR signaling pathway; John Blenis, HMS

Dana Lazarus ’09 (environmental science and engineering), oxidation of manganese by bacteria in the soil; Colleen Hansel, Harvard University

Christopher Lewis ’09 (chemistry/Romance languages), iron deprivation and its effects on the clearing of BCG in murine macrophages; Marianne Wessling-Resnick, Harvard School of Public Health

Jennifer Lo ’10 (molecular and cellular biology), NMR mapping of reverse transcription; Victoria D’Souza, Harvard University

Angelo Mao ’10 (engineering sciences), biomechanical cues from alginate gels on stem cell differentiation; David Mooney, Harvard University

Amanda Mason ’09 (molecular and cellular biology), investigating the composition, location, and interacting partners of Polycomb Group proteins during the cell cycle; Nicole Francis, Harvard University

Matthew McFarlane ’08 (biochemical sciences), “Characterization of Mammalian Ptch1 Enhancer Sites Using a Transgenic Reporter”; Andrew P. McMahon, Harvard University

Jennifer Middleton ’10 (chemistry), determining the deliquescence relative humidity of aerosol salts; Scot T. Martin, Harvard University

Shira Mitchell ’09 (mathematics/computer science), complexity of hardness amplification; Salil Vadhan and Dan Gutfreund, Harvard University

Vanessa Mitsialis ’09 (molecular and cellular biology), investigating the role of CC2D1A protein in Non-Syndromal Mental Retardation; Christopher A. Walsh, HMS

Charles Nathanson ’09 (mathematics), “Tensor Categories of Representations of Finite Groups”; Julien Bichon, Université Blaise Pascal

Kimberly Oo ’09 (chemical and physical biology), crystallization of hOgg1 bound to 8-oxoguanine containing DNA; Gregory Verdine, Harvard University

Jee Woo Park ’09 (physics and mathematics), construction of the muon spectrometer for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC); Joao Guimaraes da Costa, Center for European Nuclear Research (CERN)

Meghan Purdy ’09 (Earth and planetary sciences), mapping Antarctic water vapor with GPS technology; Paul Tregoning, Australian National University

Lev Shaket ’10 (molecular and cellular biology), molecular biology of myelination regulation; Klaus Armin-Nave and Markus Schwab, Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine

Julie Shapiro ’10 (African and African American studies, biology), effects of human activity on Macaw behavior at clay licks; Donald Brightsmith, Texas A&M University

Laura Stoppel ’08 (biology), the effects of light availability on the growth rates of juvenile corals, Favia Fragum; Robert Woollacott, Harvard University

Rachel Strauss ’09 (organismic and evolutionary biology), “A Study of the Biomechanics of How Stingrays and Sharks Propel Themselves through the Water”; George Lauder, Harvard University

Joseph Stujenske ’10 (neurobiology), population coding of acceleration in macaque MT; Richard T. Born, HMS

Alice Tzeng ’10 (chemical and physical biology), possible role of cytochrome b5 in the granzyme A-mediated apoptotic pathway; Judy Lieberman, HMS

Mark Wagner ’08 (engineering), “Real-time Analysis of Noninvasive Neuroimaging for Accelerated Learning and Computer Interfacing”; Paul Sajda, Columbia University

Xin (Cindy) Wang ’10 (chemical and physical biology), applying the phiC31 integrase/attP system to zebrafish transgenesis; Alexander Schier, Harvard University

Jue Wang ’09 (chemical and physical biology), characterizing the molecular basis of toxicity in neurodegenerative disorders; Hilal Lashuel, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

James Watts ’10 (molecular and cellular biology), reorganization of the cytoskeleton during natural killer cell cytotoxicity; Jack Strominger, Harvard University

Winston Yan ’10 (physics), direct detection of neuronal activity using magnetic resonance imaging; Richard Bowtell, University of Nottingham

Jimmy Yang ’09 (biochemical sciences), “Synthesis of Psammaplysene A Anticancer and Hsp90 Antimalarial Drugs”; Jon Clardy, Harvard University/Broad Institute

Norman Yao ’09 (physics and math), “Analysis of Mechanical Properties of Neurofilaments”; David Weitz, Harvard University

Xiang Ling Yap ’10 (electrical engineering), effects of age on auditory gap interval discrimination; Louis D. Braida of MIT and the Harvard-MIT Speech and Hearing Bioscience Program

Hann-Shuin Yew ’10 (molecular and cell biology), identifying oligomeric changes in the envelope glycoproteins of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) during the cell entry process; Jean Dubuisson, Institute of Biology of Lille/Institut Pasteur of Lille

Xun Zhou ’10 (chemistry), feasibility of virtual keyboards in a clinical setting; Julian Goldman, Massachusetts General Hospital

John Zhou ’10 (molecular and cellular biology/mathematics), genomic analysis for the global mapping of cancer-associated mutations in humans; Matthew Meyerson, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, HMS/Broad Institute