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Julia Kardon Joins Biochemistry as Assistant Professor

July 17, 2018 By

Julia Kardon has joined the Department of Biochemistry as an assistant professor.  Her research addresses the molecular mechanisms that control the activity and quality of mitochondrial proteins to match the dynamic needs of eukaryotic cells. She discovered that a mitochondrial chaperone (ClpX) activates a conserved biosynthetic enzyme through partial unfolding. This discovery poses testable models for how protein unfolding can be controlled and limited and thus how protein unfoldases can direct diverse transformations of their substrates. Her lab will employ diverse biochemical and biophysical approaches to delineate molecular mechanisms of chaperone-mediated control of mitochondrial protein activity, in combination with cell biological, genetic, and proteomic tools to discover new components of mitochondrial protein regulation and quality control.

Julia performed her postdoctoral research with Tania Baker at MIT. She received a Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of California, San Francisco with Ron Vale and a B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University.

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Niels Bradshaw is new Assistant Professor in Biochemistry

July 16, 2018 By

Niels Bradshaw, Assistant Professor of BiochemistryNiels Bradshaw has joined the Biochemistry Department as an assistant professor. Protein phosphorylation is a conserved mechanism that controls cell physiology. Niels has uncovered mechanisms that control a widespread family of protein phosphatases and direct them to their targets. Using mechanistic enzymology, structural biology, genetics, and cell biology, his research group will address how phosphatases and other signaling proteins have evolved and diversified to control important processes in all kingdoms of life.

Niels conducted postdoctoral research with Richard Losick at Harvard University. He received his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of California, San Francisco with Peter Walter, and a B.A. in Biology from the University of Chicago.

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Hongfu Liu Joins Computer Science as Assistant Professor

July 10, 2018 By

Dr. Hongfu Liu has joined the Michtom School of Computer Science at Brandeis University as a tenure-track assistant professor. He received his Ph.D. in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Northeastern University (NEU), supervised by Prof. Yun (Raymond) Fu within 3.5 years. Before joining NEU, he earned his master and bachelor degrees in management from the Beihang University with Prof. Junjie Wu. He also received two minor bachelor degrees in applied mathematics and laws.

His current research interests lie in data mining, machine learning  and related applications on business intelligence, computer vision and bioinformatics. He has published several papers in top conferences and journals, such as KDD, ICDM, SDM, AAAI, IJCAI, T-PAMI, T-KDE, T-IP, DMKD, BMC and so on. He is also the reviewer for several top conferences and journals. He has been nominated as KDD Top 20 rising star all over the world in 2016.

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John Wilmes Joins Math Department as Assistant Professor

June 14, 2018 By

John Wilmes, Assistant Professor of MathJohn Wilmes starts as an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics in Fall 2018. Along with two other new faculty members, Jonathan Toubol and Thomas Fai, he will contribute to the new Applied Mathematics major. His research is in discrete mathematics and the theory of computing, particularly focusing on structure and symmetry in networks. John’s research is motivated by the analysis of algorithms on discrete structures and machine learning theory.

Before joining Brandeis, John spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow and research scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he received the Outstanding Postdoctoral Research award from the College of Computing. He completed his PhD as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Chicago under the supervision of László Babai.

At Brandeis, John plans to continue studying the symmetries of discrete structures and developing rigorous analyses of machine learning algorithms. He is particularly interested in using insights from neuroscience as inspiration for new algorithms.

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Thomas Fai is new Assistant Professor in Department of Mathematics

June 14, 2018 By

Thomas Fai, Assistant Professor of MathThomas Fai is a new assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics. His research deals with the scientific computing and mathematical modeling of complex biological fluids, including the fluids inside of blood vessels and cells. He is interested in developing highly resolved, three-dimensional simulations that can help answer fundamental questions in biomechanics and physiology.

Prior to joining Brandeis, Thomas Fai was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard with adviser Chris Rycroft. He received his PhD in mathematics from the Courant Institute (NYU) with adviser Charles Peskin.

At Brandeis, he intends to pursue research into numerical methods to accelerate simulations of complex fluids. He is interested in continuing his work on the interaction between fluid flow, geometry, and molecular motors inside neuronal dendrites, and how this interaction breaks down in neurodegenerative disorders such as ALS and Huntington’s disease.

Simulations of growing fatty-acid vesicles in fluid

Final vesicle configurations and cross sections after a 5-fold increase in surface area using different nondimensional permeabilities π1 and growth rates π2

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Two new faculty members join the Chemistry department

March 19, 2018 By

The Chemistry department welcomes two new Assistant Professors who will be arriving on-campus in the summer/fall 2018.

Rebecca L.M. Gieseking

Rebecca GiesekingRebecca Gieseking‘s research is focused on developing computational models to understand materials for emerging energy technologies in the fields of solar energy, batteries, and fuel generation. The critical steps in these technologies involve electron transfer at complex interfaces. Her work will focus on revealing design principles that connect molecular structure to the important material properties required for these applications.​​

She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University working with George Schatz and Mark Ratner. She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Georgia Tech and a B.S. in Chemistry and Studio Art from Furman University.​

Grace Han

Grace HanGrace Han will be joining the Department of Chemistry as a new Assistant Professor in July 2018. Her research focuses on the design and synthesis of light-responsive organic materials for various applications such as energy conversion, storage, and optoelectronics.

Grace received her PhD from the Department of Chemistry at MIT in 2015. She has been a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT after the graduation. At Brandeis, she will be teaching Inorganic Chemistry (CHEM 121) in the Spring 2019.

Filed Under: chemistry, labs Tagged With: ,

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