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Graduate student round up: where are they now?

The Emory Department of Chemistry is an epicenter of cutting-edge research in organic, inorganic, biomolecular, and physical chemistry fueled by its motivated and passionate graduate students. We have featured a few outstanding graduate students in previous blogs who embody the mission of our department to engage in teaching and research efforts as a collaborative scientific community. With Recruitment Weekend kicking off today, it is the perfect time to reflect on some of the accomplishments and experiences of a few of our graduate students.


Roxanne Glazier

Roxanne Glazier of the Salaita Group is a student in the Biomedical Engineering Program, a joint graduate program shared by Emory and Georgia Tech. For her research on developing novel methods to elucidate the mechanobiology of podosomes, Roxanne was recognized with the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, a funding opportunity providing financial support to promising scientists early in their careers.


Robert Kubiak

Robert Kubiak of the Davies Group joined the Chemistry PhD program at Emory after serving as a platoon senior medic in the Army’s 3rd Ranger Battalion. His research project focuses on developing novel catalysts for N-sulfonyltriazoles-nitrogen-based compounds, with an ultimate goal of saving time and money in pharmaceutical synthetic processes.


Brian Hays

Brian Hays of the Widicus Weaver Group defended his thesis in April 2015 and, a year later, was recognized as the winner of the American Chemical Society’s Astrochemistry Dissertation Award. His award-winning research was focused on making and examining unstable molecules for their potential to lead to prebiotic molecules in space.


Yang Liu

Yang Liu of the Salaita Group defended his thesis, “Developing Nanoparticle-based Tools to Investigate Mechanotransduction at the Living/Nonliving Interface” in September 2016. In addition to his research on how our immune system can recognize and eliminate pathogens or cancer cells, he helped developed a technique for using single elastic molecules, such as DNA, protein, and polymer, as sensors to visualize membrane receptor mediated forces.