Alan A. Chen is an associate professor of Chemistry at SUNY Albany. Prior to joining the RNA Institute, Alan was a NIH-NRSA postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Angel Garcia in the Physics department of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He received his Ph.D in Molecular Biophysics in 2009 from Washington University in St. Louis where he did his thesis work with Rohit Pappu, department of Biomedical Engineering. Alan’s undergraduate degree was a dual major in physics and molecular biology from Cornell University (B.A., 2002), where he was introduced to the fascinating world of biophysics by his undergraduate mentor, Linda Nicholson. The only thing Alan enjoys more than doing crazy science is making up scientifically-accurate bedtime stories for his 10-year old daughter, Lyra, where the space princesses rescue themselves using quantitative problem-solving skills. 

Zhixue is a Ph.D student and RNA Fellow who joined the Chen lab in spring 2019. Zhixue has extensive prior training in bionanosensing including an M.S. in bioengineering from Nankai University as well as a B.S. in biotechnology from Langfang Teachers’ University. Zhixue is currently studying molecular recognition of small molecule analytes using computer-designed RNA aptamers. In her spare time, Zhixue enjoys learning how to skateboard.

Walid has a B.A. in Physics from University of Minnesota, and a started as a research volunteer in the Fabris lab as a non-matriculated student in 2018. He joined the Chen lab as a Senior Research Specialist in Summer 2020, and is particularly interested in the biomedical applications of biophysics. He has been focusing on developing methods for accurately simulated DNA G-Quadruplexes, which are notoriously difficult to get right with atomistic simulations. Among his many talents, Walid is really good at cooking, and he previously worked in a patent attorney’s office and as a day trader, and is currently applying for medical school!

Gregory John is a Ph.D student and RNA Fellow who joined the Chen lab in spring 2020, after graduating with a B.S. in Chemistry from the College of St. Rose. Greg is currently developing advanced computational algorithms for simulating synthetic materials and polymers behavior for environmental applications in collaboration with the Feldblyum lab.  Greg likes motorcycles and dislikes people who confuse surnames with given names.

Rose is a Ph.D student and RNA Fellow who joined the Chen lab in spring 2021. Rose has a B.S. in Chemistry from Shiraz University, and a M.S. in Medical Biochemistry from Kerman University.  Rose is currently working on simulating RNA-protein interactions implicated in myotonic dystrophy, a rare genetic disease, as well as experimentally testing potential molecular therapies in cell-culture models of the disease, in collaboration with the lab of Andy Berglund at the RNA Institute.

Nastaran is a dedicated P.h.D student in material science who joined the lab in Spring 2023. She holds a master’s degree in chemical engineering from Tarbiat Modares University and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Tehran. Nastaran is now focusing on molecular dynamics simulation of ionic liquids for her doctoral research, with a specific focus on parameterizing force fields to predict the behavior of these liquids. In her free time, Nastaran enjoys reading poems by contemporary poets.

Kacey recently graduated with an MS in biophysics Rensselaer Polytechnic. She joined the lab as a senior research assistant summer 2022. She is interested in single-molecule biophysics, and is developing methods to accurate calibrate atomistic simulations against single-molecule experimental data.

Christina is a chemistry/computer science double major who joined the lab in spring 2022.  Christina is currently doing research on designing modified RNA aptamers for phage therapeutic applications. She has a pet chincilla named “Isaac” and also enjoys drawing and developing video game concepts in her spare time.

Tristan is also a chemistry/computer science double major who joined the lab in Fall 2022.  His research focuses on molecular recognition of small molecules by RNA aptamers using molecular dynamics. Tristan was previously a camp counselor with Cornell Cooperative Extension for Suffolk County Farm summer program.

Hana recently graduated with an BS in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic. She did undergraduate research in the lab in 2020-2021 before joining as a gap-year postbac researcher in 2022. Hana has worked extensively on computer-aided drug design optimizing potential lead compounds for Myotonic Dystrophy therapies.  Hana is currently a PhD student in Chemical Engineering at RPI.

Isabel has an M.S. in applied math from Clarkson University, where she studied mathematical models of invasive aquatic plant growth in lakes for her thesis. Isabel worked on developing mathematical models for analyzing rare conformational transitions in RNA simulations and genetic algorithms for computer-aided drug design. Isabel prefers PDEs to ODEs, thinks infectious diseases are cool (to model) and aspires to be the future ruler of #mathtiktok.  She is currently a mathematical modeling and simulations research engineer at CEDAR, OHSU Knight Cancer Institute

Elise is a recently graduated biophysics & computational biology major from Rensselaer Polytechnic who first joined the lab as a CO-OP student for her ARCHES program in spring 2021 and continued with us until summer of 2022 when she left for graduate school.  In her “spare time”, Elise enjoys drone photography as well as visualizing her simulations as molecules dancing to music in VR. Elise is currently a graduate student in Biophysics at Johns Hopkins University.

Naomi is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College with a B.S. in physics who joined the lab as a full-time research assistant in Fall 2019 until summer 2021. Naomi worked on developing strand-exchange simulations of RNA riboswitches, which led to her co-author paper in Nucleic Acids Research. In her spare time, Naomi enjoys devising crazy but fun challenges for her D&D group to tackle. Naomi is currently a PhD student in Applied Physics at Yale University.

Sri obtained his Ph.D in Chemical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute studying under Shekhar Garde where he used molecular simulations to study hydration behavior at nano-scale interfaces. During his time at the RNA Institute, Sri adapted his expertise to study the behavior of chemically modified RNA bases which enabled many collaborative projects with other RNA Institute labs. Sri is currently a staff scientist at the Knight Cancer Center at Oregon Health Sciences University.

Tony, a shared Ph.D student with RNA Institute Senior Scientist Ken Halvorsen, hated doing tedious experiments so for his thesis, he launched a biotech startup company called Automated Lab Technologies that designs affordable “smart” equipment to replace tedious lab chores like gel electrophoresis and cell centrifugation, becoming internet famous in the process(including coverage at the Huffington Post!). Tony has since left the startup world first to take a position as Director of Machine Learning at Audioeye, Inc. and is currently Senior Delivery Principle in AI/ML at Slalom Consulting. He enjoys long walks on the beach, fine dining at KFC and yes, ladies, he’s single. 

Paul got his Ph.D in biochemistry at UC San Diego with prof. Andrew McCammon. Paul likes python and puns, and puns about python. Paul recommends that you learn Python, using puns. After studying aptamer binding and cotranscriptional folding in the Chen lab, Paul leveraged his Python skills to become a Insight Data Science Fellow in Silicon Valley, and is currently a Data Scientist at Facebook.

Brianna graduated with B.S. in Chemistry in 2017. She spent several semesters in the Chen lab simulating the effect of locked and unlocked nucleic acids on the sensitivity of graphene nano-biosensors. She is currently a Ph.D student at UAlbany’s Atmospheric Science department.

Ashley likes cats. She also graduated with an honors B.S. in Chemistry in 2016, her honors thesis centered on simulating single-molecule optical-tweezer experiments on retroviral kissing-loop RNA junctions.  Ashley is currently a Ph.D student at Cornell University’s department of Chemistry under prof. Melissa Hines

Angelo doesn’t always write shell scripts, but when he does, he uses python. Angelo graduated in 2015 with his B.S./M.S. in Chemistry and his thesis focuses on using alchemical free-energy calculations to measure RNA base-pairing thermodynamics.  He is currently a Ph.D student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s department of Chemical Engineering where he is studying complex fluid dynamics with Prof. Patrick Underhill

Rachel graduated from UAlbany in 2015 with a B.S. in Physics and spent some quality time in the Chen Lab as a scientific programmer mostly because of the bad puns. Rachel is a lifeguard as well as a mixed-martial arts expert, and she currently works for Knolls Atomic Power Lab.