Caltech Seniors Receive Fulbright Fellowships

Three graduating Caltech seniors, Alex Wang, Joy Xie, and Philip Kong, have been selected to receive 2013–2014 Fulbright scholarships to pursue graduate studies abroad.

The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government's premier scholarship program. Set up by Congress in 1946 to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges, Fulbright grants enable U.S. students and artists to benefit from unique resources in every corner of the world. Each year more than 800 Americans study or conduct research in more than 140 nations through the Fulbright Program.

"It was a pleasure to work with these students," says Lauren Stolper, director of Fellowships Advising and Study Abroad and Caltech's Fulbright Program advisor. "They each had a well-thought-out research idea based at a host university abroad that will provide the resources and supervision needed to ensure a successful outcome. Our Fulbright Scholars are excellent representatives for the Institute as well as for the U.S.—and part of their role as a Fulbright Scholar is an ambassadorial one."

Chemical engineering major Alex Wang, from Dallas, Texas, will be spending a year at Imperial College London in the laboratory of professor Molly Stevens, who specializes in biomedical materials and their application to regenerative medicine. "My topic of study will be how the external stem-cell environment may be able to influence stem-cell behavior and differentiation," Wang says. In particular, he says, "I would be looking at the influence of the protein laminin on differentiation within an artificial hydrogel scaffold. This way, we can look at how these cells can potentially be better controlled in vitro. I chose this topic due to its potential applications in medicine, as well as the opportunity to apply the engineering principles I have learned at Caltech.

"I always wanted to see the UK and experience a brand new culture for an extended period of time. I have never been to Europe," he adds, "so this should be a very eye-opening experience. I am very thankful that Fulbright has given me this honor."

Upon his return, Wang will attend graduate school at MIT, studying biological engineering.

Joy Xie, a chemical engineering major from Troy, Michigan, will travel to Switzerland for a research project in bioengineering and protein chemistry, working with Jeffrey Hubbell at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.

"Hubbell has done some very translational work in tissue engineering and drug delivery," Xie explains. The goal of her project is to create protein therapeutics that can be used to induce immune tolerance to certain antigens, such as self-antigens, to help treat autoimmune diseases. "I picked this project because I have always been interested in medicine and how it is possible to combine knowledge from several different fields to create something that has the potential to be used in the medical industry," she says.

"Switzerland seems like an incredibly scenic and exciting place, and I have always wanted to visit it," adds Xie, who will attend Northwestern University to study chemical and biological engineering upon her return to the States. "I'm really grateful for this opportunity and excited to be able to be abroad!"

Philip Kong, a biology major from Philadelphia, will be headed this summer to Seoul National University in South Korea to work with professor Sunyoung Kim. Kong, who has been doing immunology research in David Baltimore's lab for the past two years, will be studying how to identify medically meaningful bioactive compounds used in Korea's traditional botanical medicines, with a particular emphasis on screening for activities that control the Th1 and Th2 pathways of the human immune system. Various immune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and allergic diseases, will be considered in the work. "I wanted to try a different type of research than my undergraduate research had been. My new project gives me more opportunity to gain access to patient samples and have more immediate impact when it comes to treating autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis," says Kong, who plans to go to medical school to pursue an MD/PhD after his year abroad.

"There are many reasons why I wanted to go to Korea," he says, "but the main reason had to do with my project, which involves data from herbal medicine. South Korea is one of the two or three places where the practice of botanical medicine has a rich database regarding botanical medicines, including literature hundreds of years old with lists of plants and their clinical effects and safety profiles. In addition, only specific plants grow in South Korea due to the unique climate of the peninsula."

The Fulbright Program, Kong says, is an "exciting opportunity, and I feel that everyone at Caltech at least deserves a chance to study abroad and enjoy the new air of a different country. Any future Fulbright applicants should not hesitate to contact me if they would like to know more about the program."