Thalia Haines
Undergraduate Student
About Thalia
Thalia is from Washington, DC and attended the National Cathedral School. Before joining the Esser-Kahn Lab, she interned under Dr. Tiwary’s computational chemistry lab at the University of Maryland and worked in the perfusion group in Dr. Hibino’s Lab at the University of Chicago. Outside of lab, Thalia enjoys playing violin, dancing, drawing, and exploring cities with friends. She is inspired by her incredibly talented peers and hopes to continue research in graduate school.
Education
High-School Diploma (2023) – National Cathedral School
Undergraduate Sophomore / Chemistry and Biochemistry (Expected Graduation 2027) – UChicago
Favorite Quote
"It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul."
– William Ernest Henley
Scientific Hero
Gertrude Elion, who effectively revolutionized drug design and pioneered treatments for leukemia.
Favorite Paper
Lutolf, M., Hubbell, J. Synthetic biomaterials as instructive extracellular microenvironments for morphogenesis in tissue engineering. Nat Biotechnol 23, 47–55 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt1055
If you could be a piece of lab equipment, what would you be?
Chromatography Column—useful and colorful!
Thalia's Research
Thalia is working under Dr. Yixiao Dong’s adaptive polymers project, which aims to quantify the piezoelectric effects of nanoparticles on polymer stress and strain.