Long Li- 2008 Umbarger Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Research

PhD student, Structural Biology. Advisor: Dr. Rossmann.

B.S., University of Science and Technology of China, Biology Department, Hefei, China.

A: I was a 4th year PhD student. My project was the structural study of the precursor membrane protein and the envelope protein complex from the dengue virus.

Q: What kind of hours do you keep?

A: It took so much time. I would say more than 50 hours working on the bench each week. However, luck and creative thinking are more important.

Q: What was the key to publishing your recent Science paper?

A: As I said in the last question, luck and creative thinking.

Q: Can you describe the collaboration between your lab and Jue Chen's lab?

A: It is very nice to have Chen's lab next door. People from the two labs often stop by each other's benches to talk about science and other funny stuff.

Q: What do you do for fun?

A: I like trying different food. There are many kinds of restaurants in West Lafayette/Lafayette. American, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican....They may not be the best, but they give you certain tastes.

Troy Hawkins (second from left with friends)- 2007 Umbarger Outstanding Graduate Student In Research

PhD student (2003-2008) in Bioinformatics and Structural Biology research area, Advisor: D. Kihara

Postdoctoral researcher at Indiana University, School of Medicine

Q: Where did you receive your prior degree?

A: I got my BA in biochemistry from William Jewell College in Liberty, MO. It's a small liberal arts school just North of Kansas City.

Q: In a few sentences, what ar your research interests?

A: I am interested in the field of protein design, particularly the design and engineering of motor proteins. My research here is focused more on association mining of large databases and the application of that to prdict functional attributes of uncharacterized proteins.

Q: Where are you headed after Purdue?

A: Who knows? I'm putting in applications for postdoctoral positions right now with labs at UC Berkeley, UW Madison, NIH, Caltech, and a few other places. They range from projects in medical metagenomics to design of custom zinc finger DNA binding proteins. I'm also considering temporarily going into the pharmaceutical industry to earn some money and give my brain a break.

Q: Briefly describe your relationship with your advisor.

A: DK [Dr. Kihara] and I have an interesting relationship. We've both been here since Fall 2003 and I was his first graduate student, so we've been through a lot together. I've been involved in the inception of all the major projects being undertaken by the lab and have gotten to help write and submit multiple project proposals to NIH and others.

We are very different when it comes to the way we approach research and that has led to some tension at times, but I know that in the end he definitely considers my success a high priority. He encourages constant collaboration and communication of research progress to the community, and as a result i have been able to present my work at local, regional, national, and international conferences in bioinformatics and feel personally established in the field. I've learned a lot working with DK and appreciate his contribution to my success here.

Q: What aspects of Purdue have helped you the most with accomplishing your research.

A: I've had plenty of support from a variety of faculty and have found some good friends to help keep me from working too hard.

Q: Anything else you want to get off your chest?

A: Not particularly. I've enjoyed my time at Purdue but it is time to move on.

Ben Fanson- 2006 Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant

MS graduate from the Ecology, Evolution, and Population Biology research area, Advisor: Jeff Lucas

Currently pursuing a PhD in Australia.

A: I think that it was b/c of BIOL 592 - The Evolution Of Behavior and BIO 287

Q: Why do you think you were rated so highly by your students?

A: I would have to say it is my good looks…

Q: What is your degree objective and where did you acquire your previous degrees?

A: Ph.D. ; BA from Kalamazoo College

Q: In one sentence, tell me the main objective of your thesis/dissertation

A: The main objective of my thesis is to understand patterns of antipredator behaviors in environments where predation risk varies temporally.

I-Mei Yu - 2006 H.E. Umbarger Outstanding Graduate Student In Research

Ph.D. candidate in Structural Biology, Advisor: Jue Che

A: I received my B.S. degree in National Taiwan University, depertment of Agriculture Chemistry.

Q: Where are you now? (faculty position, post-doc, etc)

A: 5th year grad student at Purdue in Jue Chen's lab in the structure group of Biological Sciences

Q: How was your time at Purdue funded? Fellowship? RA? TA (if so, what classes did you teach?)

A: I work as an RA

Q: What are your general research interests and in one sentence what was the main objective of your PhD dissertation?

A: My research interests are related to infectious diseases, in particular which caused by viruses. Such as understanding the virus life cycle, their relationship with the hosts, and the symptoms associate with the infection.

My objective is to understand virus structure and assembly. The knowledge would help in designing treatments and vaccines.

Q: What did you enjoy most about being a graduate student here?

A: Well, I am a science freak so I really enjoy bench work. But I guess overall I enjoy the life of being a grad student here because I work at what I like, have enough freedom in the working schedule (sometime have to work late at nights and weekends but no fixed time so that's nice when the world cup is going on); I met lots of people from all over the world and truly experienced the cultural differences and learned tons. And lots of free food in all seminars or product shows :) Plus I have dogs to spoil and friends who work as hard and as silly as me so we can cheer each others up when all of us have to come back to lab at midnight sometimes.

Q: Write one sentence that gives an impression of your relationship with your advisor and how she helped you do such excellent research.

A: Jue understands what it takes to get things to work and herself still works in the lab sometimes. She stays positive and optimistic as well as being critical and keep a high standard. We appreciate each other and also everyone else in the lab.

Briana Betz - 2006-2007, President of the College of Science Graduate Student Council

PhD candidate in the Cell, Molecular and Devlopmental Biology research area, Advisor: BJ Taparowsky

A: The purpose of the council is to handle graduate student issues at a higher level than the department. This is the first official year for the council, so we haven't tackled very much yet, but we're hopeful that in the future we'll be able to address more problems. The council is closely tied with a faculty council called the graduate education polidy and curriculum commiittee (GEPCC). As the president of teh CoS GSC my duties include attneding the GEPCC meetings as a graduate student representative.

Q: Who else serves on the "council" with you? Do the general perspectives on important graduate student issues vary among the council members?

A: There is one graduate student representative from eah of the college of science disciplines: chemistry, biology, physics, earth and atmospheric sciences, computer science, statistics, math, as well as a representative from the PULSE program. The group is offcially headed by Aditya Mathur, the Associate Dean for Graduate Education and International Programs. I really like working with other graduate students. It's interesting to hear issues and differences among the departments, but surprisingly many of the issues we've discussed are the same across the College of Science.

Q: You previously served as a representative on the BGSC, how does this position compare?

A: This position is a bit more formal than being a representative for BGSC. There is an official president and a secretary and we have a mission statement. we meet less often, however, than the BGSC did and we have not yet been involved in the planning of any activities or seminars. It seems to be less of a hands-on position.

Q: What do you feel like you have personally gained by serving in this position?

A: I really like being able to express my opinion about graduate student problems and have some action taken as a result, even it if is a very small change instituted. There are issues in every department at every university, but what is the purpose in complaining about them if you aren't willing to work for their change? Being on the Council is my way of trying to improve, in very small ways, the already difficult graduate student experience.

Q: If someone is interested in this position, what should they do?

A: If you are interested in this position, contact Morry Levy, the GEPCC representative for Biological Sciences, or Dr. Mathur