Three Caltech Undergraduates Receive Fulbright Scholarships

Undergraduates Mohini Misra, Margaret Sui, and Arielle Tycko have been selected to receive Fulbright scholarships. The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, created by the U.S. Congress in 1946, is a cultural exchange program that offers grants to students who wish to perform research or pursue creative activities abroad.

Misra, who studies computer science and biology, will attend the Technical University of Munich and work on integrating DNA/RNA-based logic circuits into cell-like systems. The larger goal of this work "is to attain more sophisticated control over biological components that depend on information in nucleic acids, such as CRISPR-Cas systems," Misra says.

After her fellowship, Misra will attend Stanford University to pursue a PhD in bioengineering.

Sui, a bioengineering major, will work with Professor Sten Linnarsson during her fellowship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

"I have always been interested in developing new cancer therapeutics," she says. "I will get the chance to continue targeting cancer cells, specifically glioblastoma, which is an aggressive brain cancer."

Sui plans to enter an MD/PhD program and train as a physician-scientist on completion of her fellowship.

Arielle Tycko, who studies computation and neural systems, will attend the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and work on computational protein engineering to develop a novel protein for a syphilis vaccine.

Her long-term goal, she says, is to pursue an MD/PhD and continue her research using computation and machine learning for therapeutic development and then implement her research directly in clinical settings.

In the near term, she says she is excited to further her experience in the protein engineering field during her Fulbright year. "I am passionate about research that lies at the intersection of computation and medicine," she says.

—Jon Nalick