October 26, 2016

What inspired you to major in Chemistry?

My decision to pick Chemistry was actually quite surprising to me and you could say most of my family, especially because I was so sure in High school that I was a complete novice when it came to Chemistry. It was not until I got to college and I was doing my A levels that I guess you could say I had the ‘calling’ LOL! I just remember sitting in class and we had just started Organic chemistry and we were learning about electrophilic substitutions of benzene and everything just clicked for me, like I’d go home and read up about what we were going to do next and I just really started to enjoy the whole area of synthesis. I thought if I’m going to pick anything to major in it should be something that excites me and prompts me to be more inquisitive and that was Chemistry. It’s challenging, its creative and its FUN! Plus, my teacher told me I would do ‘great in Chemistry!’. 

How did you choose Caltech for your year of international study?

I chose Caltech because of its academic prowess. It is constantly ranked in the top 5 best universities in the world. I thought an opportunity to work and learn with some of the world’s greatest academics was something I could not miss out on. I mean of course the chance to study in California was also a plus but above all Caltech as an institution is known to be exceptional in the field of Chemistry so yeah it was a no-brainer that I would apply. 

Can you give us an overview of your research at Caltech?

The project I was working on in Professor Brian Stoltz’s laborartory was the total synthesis of the tetrahydroisoquinoline alkaloids crispine A, trolline, and oleracein E. These alkaloids are of interest to synthetic organic chemists because of their biological activity. Specifically, we wanted to adopt Stoltz’s 3 + 2 cycloaddition method of donor acceptor cyclopropanes and heterocumulenes as the key step in our synthesis, allowing access to the core of our three natural products.

How was your experience in a male dominated area of research like Chemistry?

I feel that because of the profession I’ve chosen I’m always in a situation where there are more men than there are women so unfortunately it doesn’t really come as a surprise to me anymore. At Caltech 67% of the undergraduates are male but to be honest I didn’t really notice that there were twice the amount of males as there were females. Maybe that’s because I major in Chemistry where the gender gap is ‘less severe’ than in fields such as physics or engineering. It was very evident to me that the female students at Caltech were excelling just as well as their male counterparts and were also displaying innate talent and academic brilliance. If anything this gender gap really just spurs me on, I wanna show people that women can ‘do science’ too. 

What are your future plans?

Once I’ve graduated, I’d like to do a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry, I’m not 100% sure where yet but probably in the UK. After my three-four years or so of research its either I stay in academia or go into industry. The pharma industry (process chem/ R&D) is probably an obvious choice for me but you never know where life will take you in the next four years so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.