Graduate student Ketsia Zinga recently received the African American Advancement Group (AAAG) August Prince Scholar Award sponsored by the Brookhaven National Laboratory. She was selected as one of three recipients to receive the award, which comes with a $3,000 honorarium.
Zinga is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, co-advised by Associate Professor Jeanne Stachowiak and Professor Pengyu Ren. She graduated from Columbia University with a B.S. in biomedical engineering.
Her current thesis project uses molecular dynamics to characterize the behavior of intrinsically disordered proteins at membrane surfaces and what molecular interactions allow them to drive membrane curvature. The research aims to provide insight into what role disordered protein regions may have in bending processes.
Outside of the lab, Ketsia is involved in the Texas BME Graduate Student Society and Diversity, Equity, and Incusion Committee.
