Research Ambassadors
Grace Widjaja ‘26
Email me at: gwidjaja@u.rochester.edu
Discipline(s) of Research
- Life sciences
Major(s) and Minor(s)
- BS in Biochemistry
- BA in Music
Areas of Interest/Research Focus
- Protein-protein/DNA interactions that drive acute myeloid leukemia — Perkins Lab URMC
- Cyanobacteria biophotovoltaics — iGEM 2024 under Dr. Meyer Dept. of Bio
- Microalgal synthetic biology — research interest (hopefully Fulbright with Dr. Lang, Hochschule Bremerhaven)
Areas where I may be particularly helpful
- Lab shadowing
- Getting into a lab (networking)
- Writing posters and drafting talks for conferences
- App writing
- Determining research interest
- Research opportunities outside of STEM
- Just chatting about research :)
What advice do you have for prospective or new researchers?
The thing that made me fall in love with research is the community. Getting into research can feel really daunting, papers are confusing, talks are jargon-heavy, and how are you supposed to just jump right into all that? But that‘s the beautiful thing, no one is expected to know and understand everything, that‘s why we do research. You really see that philosophy shine at conferences, where a bunch of people who are just passionately curious come together to share what they learned.
Cut yourself some slack, follow your curiosity, and surround yourself with people who are supportive in mentoring you.