A Chemist with a Purpose

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Mei Hong '92 Works at the Cutting Edge of Protein Research

Mei Hong works in the cutting-edge field of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, studying the structure and function of proteins. She hopes to discover how proteins kill microbes and viruses. This, in turn, will pave the way for future advances in medicine.

Mei has been making her mark in the field of chemistry ever since she graduated summa cum laude from Mount Holyoke. She completed a Ph.D. program at UC Berkeley, did a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT, and took a research position at the University of Massachusetts. Today she's an associate professor of chemistry at Iowa State University.

At Mount Holyoke Mei did research with her faculty adviser, and during her junior year she participated in the summer research program, doing laser spectroscopy. She was impressed with the College's state-of-the-art instrumentation and the fact that she had all the time she needed to work with it.

Mei's excellence as a chemist has been recognized with numerous prestigious awards: the National Science Foundation's POWRE award, designed to encourage women in the fields of research and education; the NSF's CAREER award, which recognizes outstanding young faculty; and the American Chemical Society's Pure Chemistry Award. In 2004, she received Mount Holyoke's Mary Lyon Award, which honors a young alumna who demonstrates promise or sustained achievement in her life, profession, or community.

"Mount Holyoke does a good job of conveying the message that if you put your mind to it you can do a lot of things," says Mei. "You can take on the world."