After just three years at Hamilton, Matthew Liptak's résumé already reads like a page from a "who's who" directory of promising young scientists. Among the highlights:
- Selected from among 1,155 applicants nationwide to receive the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, the premier undergraduate award in mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering;
- Recipient of a 2002 Pfizer Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, one of only four students nationwide to receive the award for computational chemistry (his summer research has also been supported by grants from Merck/AAAS and Bristol Myers Squibb);
- Co-author of five articles published in various academic journals, including the Journal of Chemical Physics and the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
While Matt's accomplishments are many, the chemistry major and Bristol Scholar is motivated by one goal: understanding chemistry through computation.
Beginning the summer after his first year at Hamilton, Matt began using computer models to research the way molecules are absorbed into the blood in hopes of helping drug designers predict how new medicines will behave in the human body.
This growing field of computational chemistry uses computer simulations to help discover molecular properties that may be used to make tomorrow's miracle drugs. "Right now, drug manufacturers are designing without knowledge that could help them in their screening of potential drugs," Matt said. "With our supercomputer facility, I've been able to do calculations we couldn't have done previously."
Although his research is formula-heavy, Matt doesn't mind. "That's the nice thing about computational chemistry: if everything goes wrong, you can delete the file -- you don't have to clean up the lab."
Matt also takes advantage of the breadth of a Hamilton education. "Even though my focus is in chemistry and physics, I usually find my non-science courses appealing as well," he said. "The professors here are excellent, so there's a broad range of interesting and accessible courses."
