Thrill Seeker
When you talk to Richard Wing ’04 about his research, there’s something in his voice that sounds more like a bungee jumper who’s just completed his most spectacular dive ever than a graduate student in molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale. “I don’t want to say euphoria, but when you get a result? When you get an answer? It feels really good. Even if you’re working on a project that you absolutely care nothing about, it still feels great. So you can imagine when you’re doing a project you really like and you get results, it feels amazing.”
Wing entered the PhD program at Yale expecting to pursue bioinformatics, using computational methods to analyze the structure of proteins. During the first year of the program, students do three rotations, working in different labs under different professors to get a better idea of what they’d like to focus on. After his first rotation in an X-ray crystallography lab, he was totally hooked. “Basically, we use X-ray crystallography to solve protein structures, which can take anywhere from a few months to a few years,” said Wing. “With my current project, one of the first structures we’re solving is actually almost done. I’m not at liberty to talk about it until we’re through, but solving this structure will be a major contribution to biology. So I’m very very excited about that.”
Wing came to Vassar with the intention of studying science (and chose Vassar over Rensselaer Polytechnic and Stevens Institute of Technology) and did—in a big way. He majored in biochemistry and did three summers of URSI, working with three professors on three very different projects—a genetic experiment involving fruit flies with biology professor Nancy Pokrywka, an investigation of the role of protein MAP-II in neuron damage following stroke with biology professor Kate Susman, and an implementation of a parallel algorithm for simulating molecular association with computer science professor Brad Richards. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi, graduated with general and departmental honors, and won the Olive M. Lammert Book Prize for excellence in biochemistry.
But he also minored in Chinese and took courses in English, film, and history. “That’s really why I chose Vassar over the technical schools. I’ve met a lot of people in graduate school who have no idea of what goes on on earth—honestly. They have no idea of anything that happened in the 20th century and no idea what’s going on now because they’ve been totally focused on science since they started college. So I’m glad I have that perspective.”
And New Haven? “Contrary to a lot of reports, it’s actually very nice. The stipend is quite generous. I’m able to afford to live pretty well. Basically? I’m having a great time.”