Learning experience: Senior student travels the path to self-understanding

Learning experience: Senior student travels the path to self-understanding

BY DAWN DORSEY
Special to the Rice News

Young adulthood should be a period of discovery, a time to explore possible career paths and life goals. One of the particular advantages of attending Rice is the wealth of eye-opening opportunities available through research, travel and interaction with faculty.

LIAO

During her time at Rice, Julie Liao — a Sid Richardson College senior majoring in biochemistry and Asian studies — has had several illuminating experiences. This past summer she broadened her horizons with a trip to China and participation in an important research project.

Liao, who was born in China and moved to Rochester, N.Y., in her sophomore year of high school, was intrigued when she heard about the Kathryn Leebron Smyth Travel Fellowship. Established by Rice President David Leebron and Y. Ping Sun in 2004, the fellowship provides support for an undergraduate student to participate in an international internship; international travel, study or research abroad; or other international program.

Liao saw it as an opportunity to work with the Overseas China Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization that shares her interest in improving education in rural areas of China.

“We share the same passion to help poor people in China,” Liao said. “I volunteered to travel there to inspect schools and interview students that the organization sponsors.”

JULIE LIAO

Harsh living conditions in rural villages and beautiful mountain scenery were what Julie Liao, recipient of the Kathryn Leebron Smyth Travel Fellowship, experienced while spending a month in China, visiting schools in underdeveloped villages in Jiangxi Province.

Liao spent a month in China, visiting schools in underdeveloped villages in Jiangxi Province, where she saw beautiful mountain scenery and harsh living conditions. She was inspired by the determination and open hearts of the people and has vowed to return.

Since her sophomore year at Rice, Liao, a Century Scholar, has worked on protein-folding studies in the laboratory of Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede, associate professor of biochemistry and cell biology and of chemistry. Liao has been second author, with Wittung-Stafshede, on two articles in prestigious publications.

This year, Liao participated in the Summer Medical and Research Training Program at Baylor College of Medicine. She was part of a team under the direction of Rice’s Naomi Halas, the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and professor of chemistry, and Robert Raphael, the T.N. Law Assistant Professor in Bioengineering. The team worked on a collaborative research project to attach lipids to nanoshells and then use such lipid-bound nanoshells to trap important membrane-associated molecules, such as cholesterol, salicylate or ibuprofen.

“At Rice, the faculty is very willing to have undergraduates work in their labs,” Liao said. “At other schools, the faculty is so tied up in their own research they don’t take the time to work with students.”

Now that Liao is beginning to consider her postgraduation life next spring, she finds her goals have changed. Her trip to China inspired her to pursue a graduate degree in science, technology and society, which she hopes to use to help underprivileged people in China.

“The whole point of science is to benefit the world,” Liao said. “I want to use my education to reach out to humanity.”