I believe there is structure in all things on all scales, from the sub-atomic to the cosmic. To understand basic mechanisms of actions requires knowing the structures involved. My scientific interests are related to understanding and defining relationships between molecular structure and biological activity with practical applications in protein engineering, molecular, structural and computational biology. My long term career goals are to build a genomics program that train secondary and undergraduate school students for entry into the biotechnology work force. I anticipate these individuals will harvest and construct a database bio-bank of local biodiversity for genetic material that may have beneficial applications in industry and medicine. Individual elements that are discovered with interesting properties would be subjects for further exploration. Much of my research is based on combining various technologies to extract information about structure with important outcomes and then use that data to construct new molecules that answer specific questions.
I see many opportunities for student growth in math and science using an application development approach. In my experience, when a small group of young people understand an objective and its importance to the world around us, they become involved in the process and learn the material on a more personal level. This approach as served me well as I have begun to develop a summer internship program to train high school students to work in a molecular biology laboratory.
I am interested in teaching how science and math can be used. This involves more than understanding objectives and techniques. It requires teaching what products each science or technology can provide and how those results can be interpreted. Proper interpretation leads to better decisions and ultimately to independent thinking.
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