Alumni Earn PhD!

Talk about making a person feel old! Two of the Pollock lab alumni have earned their doctorates of philosophy in chemistry this month.

Dr. Hyejin Park was one of my first research students (graduated in 2017 as a BMB major). I was lucky to zoom into her defense last Friday. She worked in the Wang lab at Duke University and from my understanding contributed to a number of research projects. The latest one inspired in some ways by the work she did at UR! She is off to work as a med chemist at Jnana Therapeutics in Boston.

Dr. Patrick TomHon was the first research student that worked on a collaborative project between my lab and Dr. Nolin’s lab (graduated in 2018 as a CHEM major). He really knows how to focus and get science done and finished his work in the Theis lab at NC State in under 4 years. He will be working at a start-up based on his work funded by the National Science Foundation!

The craziest thing is that the two remarkable scientists both contributed to the growing field of hyperpolarization for imaging purposes. I think I need to learn some more about it since are officially smarter than I am.

Join me in wishing them a heartfelt congratulations!

~jap

P.S. Always happy to hear alumni news so keep me in the loop! 🙂