About Emily

Hometown:
Merrimack, NH

University Partner:
Northeastern University

Degree:
Physics

Grant Partner:
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Senior Mentor:
Dr. David Hill, Department of Cancer Biology

"There is no program that is similar to Steamboat. While the internship is a very strong and valuable component of the program, the focus on personal and professional development is what makes this experience so unique. The support from the entire Steamboat community is unparalleled and provides Scholars with the courage to take risks and to challenge themselves."

Scholar Background

Emily’s love of physics stems from an underlying belief that its fundamental principles connect all things. She enjoys learning how the language of logic is used to quantify observations that might also be described in intuitively expressive forms, such as art or music. While pursuing a degree in science, Emily has striven to incorporate these other disciplines into her academic experience, and has found that the versatility in the field of physics has allowed her to explore unexpected avenues. At Northeastern, Emily has been involved with an NSF grant called the ADVANCE program, dedicated to improving the climate for women and minorities in STEM fields. As a research assistant, she worked to expose the challenges these populations face and examine how the configuration of academic networks affects success in different fields. Prior to her work with ADVANCE, Emily conducted physical oceanography research at Oregon State University on the evolution and structure of nonlinear internal waves in Massachusetts Bay. Outside of her studies, Emily is involved in peer-mentoring through two campus groups. She has worked as a content development intern at the Boston Museum of Science, as a student ambassador for the Boston Ballet, and as the Interviews Editor for Northeastern’s music magazine, Tastemakers. She enjoys writing poetry and short fiction, and has played guitar since she was 13.

Internship Description

As a member of the bioinformatics group in the Center for Cancer Systems Biology, Emily worked on two independent research projects to elucidate the relationship between protein mutations and disease. In the first, she sought to identify disease-associated mutations that would likely disturb a protein's ability to properly fold; ultimately, the lab will test means of recovering these proteins' functions with chaperone molecules. In the second project, Emily explored the connection between intrinsically disordered proteins and mutations: she found that disease-associated missense mutations occur significantly more often in structured regions of proteins. With support from her Senior Mentor, David Hill, Emily had the opportunity to attend three professional conferences throughout the summer. Beyond her work in basic research, she was also able to spend time in the Radiation Oncology department witnessing a clinical application of physics in medicine.

Where are they now?

Emily is entering her final year at Northeastern University and plans to graduate in May 2012 with a degree in Physics. In the fall of 2010 she completed a full-time research co-op with the MacroConnections group at the MIT Media Lab, employing much of the network science methodology she developed at Dana-Farber. Her research from MIT and Dana-Farber was recognized at the 2011 Northeastern University Research Expo as the best undergraduate work in interdisciplinary topics. Presently, Emily is participating in her final co-op placement working as a full-time member of the engineering team at Fikst Product Development.