Tiffany Chen, Howard Hughes Summer Scholar '06, Duke '07
Tiffany Chen, a 2007 graduate of Trinity College at Duke, was an active undergraduate. A FOCUS student in her first year, a member of the Asian Students Association and an officer in the Duke Association for Computing Machinery , she also served as a teaching assistant in multiple computer science courses including one designed to attract women into computer science majors. She was also, of course, a dedicated student and had demonstrated talent in the areas of math and computer programming. As a junior, she had designed an interdepartmental major in computational and mathematical biology and was seeking opportunities to advance her skills and to use them to solve important questions in biology. She applied to and was accepted into one of Duke's Howard Hughes-funded undergraduate research programs, Summer Scholars.
In her summer project, Tiffany joined a research team led by Dr. Fred Nijhout and Dr. Michael Reed. The team was focusing its energies toward model building for the cellular metabolism of folate, a vitamin important in preventing birth defects. Continuing with this project throughout her senior year, Tiffany was awarded high distinction for her senior thesis, A Compartment Model for the Transport and Storage of Folate.
Where is Tiffany Chen now? She won a $10,000 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship and matriculated in the Biomedical Informatics program at Stanford University in 2007. The interests and skills Tiffany developed in her interdisciplinary major, Duke's undergraduate research programs and a Stanford graduate education will combine as the foundation on which she will build her future career. Hats off to Tiffany and to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for their support of undergraduate research!