Undergraduate Research Awards

Submitted by Diana Knight on
Emily Ding
Damielle Hieber
Pin-Ruei (Ray) Huang
Hannah Lea
Shenwei Wu

This year’s recipients of the Distinguished Research in Chemistry award are:

Emily Ding is a graduating senior majoring in biochemistry. During her undergraduate years, she aided the research group of Professor František Tureček in their studies regarding intramolecular carbene crosslinking in peptide conjugate ions. She also participated in the Washington NASA Space Grant Consortium’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program and hopes one day to use her skills to research and improve the health of current and future space explorers. Emily is excited to begin working as a manufacturing associate with Parse Biosciences on their single cell sequencing technology after graduation.

Damielle Hieber, Theberge group

Pin-Ruei (Ray) Huang graduated in March 2022 with a B.S. in chemistry. He has been in the research group of Assistant Professor Matthew Golder since his sophomore year working on cyclic polymers and their applications. Ray will continue his scientific journey by pursuing the Ph.D. at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. He hopes to stay involved in materials chemistry research to benefit the fields of technology or biomedicine.

Hannah Lea graduated in March 2022 with a B.S. in biochemistry with college honors. Hannah has spent the last four years in the group of Assistant Professor Ashleigh Theberge studying a range of topics including cytokine stabilization, vasodilation in blood vessels, and idiopathic male infertility. Hannah will be starting her doctoral studies at Yale in August in the Department of Translational Molecular Medicine, Pharmacology, and Physiology. She is interested in doing clinical and translation research on pediatric brain tumors.

Konstantina Mason, Cossairt group

Shenwei Wu graduated in 2022 with majors in chemistry, mathematics, and physics. Research became a key component that transformed Shenwei’s undergraduate education. Shenwei valued his time in Professor Brandi Cossairt’s inorganic chemistry lab, where he worked on the synthesis and characterization of colloidal nanomaterials with his mentor, Hao Nguyen. Shenwei was also passionate about teaching, for which he worked as a CLUE math tutor as well as a chemistry and physics teaching assistant. Shenwei is grateful for the support of Prof. Cossairt and Hao, as well as the academic advisers Tim and Casey who have greatly contributed to his academic journey.

Xiaorui Steven Yu graduated in June 2022 with a B.S. in chemistry and a B.A. in photomedia. He helped in the research group of Assistant Professor Alexandra Velian with the synthesis of clusters and optimizing trimetallations. This autumn, he begins his studies in the field of General Art in photography and related media and wishes to utilize the inorganic chemistry research skills in new forms of art crafting.

This year’s recipients of the Distinguished Research in Biochemistry award are:

Tung Ching (Cheryl) Chan, Ruohola-Baker group
Wenlin Huang, Gu group
Sydney Kim, Ruohola-Baker group
Eric So, Kwon group
Kaycie Opiyo, Wills group
Yilong Qu, Gu group
Peter Tinker, King group

Congratulations to all our graduating seniors!

Note: Other recipients of these awards declined to have their names published.

These awards were established by the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry to honor graduating seniors who have maintained an exceptional academic record and excelled in their undergraduate research.
Thank you to our alumni and friends who give generously to fund these awards. If you have questions about giving to the University of Washington or how you can support students studying chemistry and biochemistry, please contact Diana Knight, advancement & communications manager.

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