People
Principal Investigator
Yi He
- Principal Investigator
Current Position:
- Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, College of Art and Science
- Adjunct Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Health Sciences Center
- Associate Director, Center for Computational Chemistry (C3)
- UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center (UNMCCC) full member
Degrees:
- Ph.D. in Biophysics, 2009, Huazhong University of Science and Technology
- Postdoctoral Associate in Chemistry, 2009-2012, Cornell University (PI: Prof. Harold A. Scheraga)
- Research Associate in Chemistry, 2012-2017, Cornell University (PI: Prof. Harold A. Scheraga)
- Research Scientist in Bioengineering, 2017-2018, University of California Merced (PI. Prof. Victor Muñoz)
Honors and Grants(after joining UNM):
- 2024 Cancer Center Collaboration Award Between Sanford Burnham Prebys Cancer Center & UNMCCC
- SUPN, 2024-2027
- NSF CAREER Award, 2023-2028
- SUPN Collaboration-Building Seed Funding, 2023-2024
- INBRE RAIN Award, 2023-2024
- NSF PREC Track 1, 2022-2025 (PI: Mark Walker - Experiments; Co-PI: Yi He - Computations)
- The Autophagy, Inflammation, and Metabolism Center Core Capability Enhancement Award, 2022
- NSF LEAPS Award, 2021-2023
- The 2021 Summer Research for Faculty (SuRF) Award, 2021 & 2022 (Twice)
- Research Allocations Committee (RAC) Award, 2020-2022
- The Substance Use Disorders Grand Challenge Pilot Research Award, 2019-2023 (renewed twice)
Email: yihe (at) unm.edu
Graduate Students
Emily Hendrix
- Graduate Student
- PhD Candidate 2021 - Present
Honors:
2023 NSF-GRFP Awardee
2023 2nd Place LoboBITES
2023 ACS invited speaker
Emily is a graduate with a B.S. degree in Chemistry from Rollins College. She gained research experience that focused on the DEA of NO2 and NO2-. She is currently interested in engineering proteins as biosensors to capture chemical compounds. Her goal after graduate school is to continue doing research for the pharmaceutical industry.
Xinyu Xia
- Graduate Student
- PhD Candidate 2023 - Present
Xinyu earned his Master's degree in Biomedical Engineering from Wuhan University of Technology. His graduate studies primarily centered on drug design, utilizing molecular dynamics simulations. As he progresses through his PhD research, he aspires to gain a deeper understanding and enhance his skills in computational chemistry and structural biology.
Di Lei
- Graduate Student
- PhD Candidate 2024 - Present
Di is a graduate student with an M.S. degree in Chemistry and Physics of Polymers from Southwest University. She feels interested in exploring more subtle mechanisms of interaction between biological molecules and other compounds via computational strategy. She wants to experience the joy of research.
Jesse Velasco
- Graduate Student
- PhD Candidate 2024 - Present
Jesse graduated with a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Central Arkansas. He is interested in the application's of computational chemistry towards protein design in effect to environmental and biomedical processes. His goal is to research environmental remediation methods on tribal lands.
Autumn Arruti
- Graduate Student
- PhD Candidate 2024 - Present
Temair Shorty
- Graduate Student
- PhD Candidate 2024 - Present
Zhaoyuan Sun
- Graduate Student
- PhD Candidate 2024 - Present
Zhaoyuan graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Biomedical Sciences from Shandong University. He has previously worked as a research assistant at Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR in Singapore for seven months. He aims to master computational methods while continuing to excel in wet lab experiments, striving for a balanced advancement in both areas in his future research.
Undergraduate Students
Owen Sapp
- Undergraduate Student
- Chemistry
Owen is pursuing a B.S. in Chemical Biology (a new BS program in Chemistry), having graduated from Los Alamos High School in 2023. He is interested in developing an understanding of protein functions and interactions, particularly as they relate to nerve cell function, synaptic plasticity, and neurotransmission. Eventually, he hopes to innovate ways to utilize peptides and proteins for the prevention and treatment of neurological disorders. He is ecstatic to be able to create progress in this field.
High School Students
Alumni
Amy Overstreet Stevens
- Alumni
- PhD 2024 with Distinction (2021 NSF-GRFP Awardee)
Tongtong Li
- Alumni
- PhD 2024 (Postdoc at Purdue)
Shenghan Song
- Alumni
- PhD 2024 (Postdoc at Purdue)