
Ashley Carter
Professor
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Biochemistry and Biophysics Program
Email: acarter@amherst.edu
Office: Science Center, Room A122• (413) 542-2593
Laboratory: Science Center, Room C009 • (413) 542-2949
Current Lab Members

Kat Martini
Class of 2030
DNA Folding – Viruses

Jimmy Lin
Class of 2027
DNA Folding – Viruses

Jacob Connolly
Class of 2027
DNA Hydrogels

Vanissa Nwaigbo
Class of 2026
Histone Replacement

Cristina Hayes-Mendez
Class of 2028
DNA Hydrogels
Charlie Lewis
Class of 2027
DNA Origami

Stan Craig
Class of 2027
Histone Replacement
Linxi Cai
Class of 2027
DNA Hydrogels

Andrea Yan
Class of 2028
Histone Replacement
Nabiha Tahsin
Class of 2027
LoopNet

Theint Theint Thu
Class of 2026
DNA Folding – Viruses
Undergraduate Thesis Students
- Vanissa Nwaigbo • Class of 2026
- Theint Theint Thu • Class of 2026
- David Brown • Class of 2025 • DNA Hydrogels for Bone Regeneration
- Jai Dreher • Class of 2025 • Using a Centrifugal Force Microscope to View DNA Folding
- Jonathan Xing • Class of 2025 • Measuring DNA Folding by the SARS-COV-2 Nucleocapsid Protein
- Olivia DeVol • Class of 2025 • Interactive Physics Demonstrations Inspired by the Exploratorium
- Isabel Hardy • Class of 2024 • Histone Replacement is Multistep
- Daniel Oo • Class of 2024 • Neural Network for Processing DNA Images
- Alejandra Velasquez • Class of 2024 • Stabilizing DNA Origami with Protamine
- Victoria Kuntz • Class of 2023 • Indications of a More Complex DNA Toroid Formation
- Audrey Orlowski • Class of 2023 • Constructing a Centrifugal Force Microscope
- Lynn Fu • Class of 2022 • Pathway of Protamine-Induced Nucleosome Replacement
- Kate Jones • Class of 2021 • Characterizing the Histone-to-Protamine Replacement Pathway
- Donna Roscoe • Class of 2021 • Comparing DNA Folding by Different Condensing Agents
- Youna Choi • Class of 2021 • DNA Folding by the SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid Protein
- Ndukwo Okoronkwo • Class of 2020 • Cardiovascular Diseases in Egypt: Exploring Cultural and Economic Conditions to Inform Intervention Strategies
- Ruth Mosunmade • Class of 2020 • Unraveling the histone replacement pathway in sperm
- Ryan McMillan • Class of 2020 • From loops to toroids: investigating the protamine-induced DNA condensation process
- Emily Ma • Class of 2020 • Repackaging DNA: from nucleosome core particles to protamine loops
- Hilary Bediako • Class of 2019 • Determining the pathway for protamine-induced
- DNA loop and toroid formation in sperm
- Ashwin Balaji • Class of 2019 • Characterizing the mechanism of DNA loop formation by protamine
- Peter Cho • Class of 2019 • Tracking the kinematics of the zebrafish startle response
- Bishop Grimm • Class of 2018 • Toward force characterization of protamine condensed DNA
- Luka Devenica • Class of 2017 • Building an optical trap
- Adam Smith • Class of 2017 • Measuring DNA folding by protamine
- Marco Catipovic • Class of 2014 • Measuring the viscoelastic properties of zebrafish embryos
- Clay Contee • Hampshire College Class of 2014 • Atomic force microscopy for undergraduate laboratories
- Robert Schwab • Class of 2013 • Stepwise mechanism of DNA condensation in sperm
- Frederick Shipley • Class of 2013 • Using backscattered detection to build an optical profilometer
Carter Lab Alumni

Kat Martini • Class of 2030
(Summer 2025-present)

Cristina Hayes-Mendez • Class of 2028
(Summer 2025-present)

Andrea Yan • Class of 2028
(Summer 2025-present)

Jimmy Lin • Class of 2027
(January 2025-present)

Jacob Connolly • Class of 2027
(Summer 2025-present)

Stan Craig • Class of 2027
(January 2025-present)
Charlie Lewis • Class of 2027
(Summer 2024-present)
Nabiha Tahsin • Class of 2027
(Summer 2024-present)

Vanissa Nwaigbo • Class of 2026
(Summer 2025-present)

Theint Theint Thu • Class of 2026
(January 2025-present)
Linxi Cai • Class of 2026
(Summer 2024-present)
Venumi Gamage • Robot Team • Class of 2026
(Summer 2023)
Renee Liou • Robot Team • Class of 2026
(Summer 2023)
Paolo Canigiula • Robot Team • Class of 2026
(Summer 2023-January 2024)

Shreya Hegde • Class of 2026
(Summer 2023)

Rebekah Hong • Biochemistry and Biophysics, Class of 2026
(Summer 2023)

Oliver Polachino • Physics and Math, Class of 2026
(January 2023-Summer 2023)

David Brown • Class of 2025
(Summer 2022-May 2025)

Jonathan Xing • BCBP and Anthropology, Class of 2025
(January 2023-May 2025) •

Jai Dreher • Physics and Math, Class of 2025
(January 2023-May 2025) •
Jai is doing an engineering post bac at Columbia to get a BE and then is planning on going to graduate school.

Karen Lee • BCBP and English, Class of 2025
(Summer 2022)

Melanie Hur • Physics and LJST, Class of 2025
(Summer 2022)

Isabel Hardy • Undeclared, Class of 2024
(January 2021-May 2024) •
Isabel went to grad school at Yale in the BQBS track in Biological and Biomedical Sciences for a PhD.

Daniel Oo • Undeclared, Class of 2024
(January 2021-May 2024) •
Daniel is going to PhD/MD program at Harvard.

Michael Liu • Undeclared, Class of 2024
(January 2021-May 2024) •
Michael is in math grad school for a PhD.

Alejandra Velasquez • BCBP, Class of 2024
(January 2022-May 2024) •
Alejandrawent to grad school at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical School for a PhD.

Jake Kim • Neuroscience, Class of 2023
(January 2022-Summer 2022) •
Jake took a clinical coordinator position at Stanford.

Audrey Orlowski • BCBP and Math, Class of 2023 (January 2022-May 2023) •
Audrey went to do a biophysics PhD at Wash U in Saint Louis.

Vietta Kuntz • Physics and BCBP, Class of 2023
(Summer 2020-May 2023) •
Vietta is doing a PhD in the biophysics program at Harvard.

Joanna Idrovo • BCBP, Class of 2023
(Summer 2020-Summer 2021) •
Joanna is a research associate in a molecular microbiology lab at UC Berkeley.

Genaro Torres • BCBP, Class of 2022
(Summer 2020-Spring 2022)

Lynn Fu • BCBP, Class of 2022
(January 2019-Spring 2022) •
Lynn worked as a postbac fellow at the National Cancer Institute in Maryland and is now at medical school at Harvard.

Andrea Boskovic • Math and Statistics, Class of 2021
(Summer 2018- Summer 2021) •
Andrea went to graduate school at the University of Washington. She received an MS in Statistics and is currently a supply chain manager at Amazon in Seattle.

Kate Jones • BCBP, Class of 2021
(Summer 2018-Summer 2021) •
Kate went to Yale to work as a postbac in the Lucas Lab. She then went to Penn Medical School for MD/PhD.

Donna Roscoe • BCBP and Psychology, Class of 2021
(January 2019 – Summer 2021) •
Donna was a graduate student at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. She is currently at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona.

Youna Choi • Neuro, Class of 2022
(January 2019) •
Youna is working on her PhD at Brown and in conjunction with the NIH. She is in the labs of Peter Schmidt (NIMH) & David Goldman (NIAAA).

Yilikal Sarka • BCBP, Class of 2021
(Summer 2017) •
Yilikal is planning on heading back to Ethiopia.

Ryan McMillan • BCBP and Physics, Class of 2020
(January 2017-Summer 2020) •
Ryan won a Fulbright Fellowship and worked in the Dietz Lab in Germany the following year. He also won an NSF Fellowship as an undergraduate and worked at Harvard Biophysics the following Fall. He is currently working on a PhD at Harvard in Biophysics program. He is co-advised by Wesley Wong and Peng Yin.

Emily Ma • BCBP, Class of 2020
(Summer 2017-Summer 2020) •
Emily was a Q Fellow at Amherst College before heading off to medical school. She just graduated from medical school at Johns Hopkins with her MD in 2025.

Ruth Mosunmade • BCBP, Class of 2020
(Summer 2017-Spring 2020) •
Ruth did a postbac year at Elms College. She worked at the NIH and is going to DO school at NYIT – Arkansas.

Ndukwo (Biafra) Okoronkwo • Asian Studies and Global Health, Class of 2020
(Fall 2019-Spring 2020) •
Biafra will be doing contract tracing in the coronavirus pandemic after graduating. He is planning on going to graduate school to get a Masters in Public Health in about 3 years. Biafra got a masters of public health from Johns Hopkins in 2025 and now is a public health analyst for the Baltimore City Health Department.

Peter Cho • BCBP, Class of 2019
(Summer 2016-Summer 2019) •
Peter is currently at Biomedical Engineering graduate school at Duke. He got a PhD in Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering from Duke in 2025.

Ashwin Balaji • BCBP, Class of 2019
(January 2018-Summer 2019) •
Ashwin is currently in the Biophysics graduate program at Stanford.

Hilary Bediako • BCBP, Class of 2019
(Summer 2016-Summer 2019) •
Hilary went to Penn Medical School for MD and graduated in 2023. She is currently a resident at Johns Hopkins.

Moumita Dasgupta • Teaching Fellow while at Amherst
(Summer 2016-Summer 2018) •
Moumita went to Smith for a Visiting Assistant Professorship after Amherst. She is now an Assistant Professor at Augsberg University in Minnesota.

Bishop Grimm • Physics, Class of 2018
(Summer 2016-Spring 2018) •
Bishop is in materials science graduate school. He got a MS in materials engineering from Penn State and now is a TMI Engineer at Intel.

Obinna Ukogu • BCBP and Math, Class of 2018
(January 2015-Summer 2018) •
After leaving Amherst, Obinna took a financial research position with Capstone Research. He is planning to go to Math graduate school in Fall 2020 at University of Washington.

Adam Smith • BCBP, Class of 2017
(Summer 2015-Summer 2017) •
Adam worked for a year as a legal intern at McAndrews, Held, and Malloy in DC. Then he went to law school at Stanford and also got a Masters in Bioengineering there. He graduated with a JD and an MS in bioengineering in 2022. He was a judicial law clerk in Texas and San Diego, before becoming an attorney doing IP litigation in Washington DC.

Luka Devenica • BCBP and Physics, Class of 2017
(Summer 2014-Summer 2018) •
Luka went to physics graduate school at Emory. He graduated from Emory with a PhD in 2024 in physics. His research is in semiconductors and optoelectronics.

Elizabeth White • BCBP, Class of 2017
(Summer 2014-Summer 2017) •
Elizaeth went to biophysics graduate school at University of Chicago and worked in the Scherer Lab. She graduated from UChicago in 2023 with a PhD in biophysics and is now a patent scientist in Chicago.

Matt Woop • Physics, Class of 2016E
(Summer 2014-Spring 2015) •
Matt was a data engineer with iSentium in Miami, FL. He is now self-employed and does algorithmic trading.

Ji Hoon Lee • Physics, Class of 2016
(Summer 2013-Spring 2014) •
Ji Hoon did a theory thesis with Professors Loinaz and Jagu. After studying at Cambridge for a year and then working at McGill, Ji Hoon went to the Perimeter Institute for physics graduate school. He got a PhD from the Perimeter Institute in 2024 in theoretical physics on black holes and now is doing a postdoc in Zurich at ETH.

Eileen Troconis Gonzalez • Biology, Class of 2015
(Spring 2015) •
Eileen did her thesis with Joe Trapani in Biology in collaboration with the Carter Lab. She then went to Cambridge for a year went to Cornell for a DVM/PhD. She got a PhD in neurobiology at Cornell before going on to get her DVM from Cornell in 2025.

Terri-Anne Hultum • Physics, Class of 2015
(Summer 2012 – Summer 2013) •
After Amherst, Terri went to computer science graduate school at NC State.

Clay Contee • Physics, Class of 2014 (Hampshire College)
(Fall 2013 – Spring 2014) •
After graduating, did a one year Bridge program at University of Massachusetts, then a Masters at Illinois Institute of Technology before heading to Penn for physics graduate school.

Matt Kurek • Physics, Class of 2014
(Summer 2013 – Fall 2014) •
Currently a programmer at Rockstar Games in Massachusetts.

Raysa Cabrejo • Chemistry, Class of 2014
(Spring 2013) •
Raysa went to medical school at Yale and graduated in 2019 with an MD/MHS. She did a 1-year surgery internship at Yale New Haven Hospital and continued her residency the next year at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in their plastic and reconstructive surgery program. She is currently Chief Resident in plastic surgery at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock medical center.

Shahzad Anwar • BCBP, Class of 2014
(Summer 2012) •
After Amherst, Shahzad went to chemical engineering at Columbia. He interned for Boeing and is currently working at Amazon.

Marco Catipovic • BCBP, Class of 2014
(Summer 2012 – Summer 2014) •
Currently a graduate student in Harvard’s Biophysics program working in the Rapoport lab. Marco got his PhD in 2020!

Paul Tyler • Biology, Class of 2014
(Fall 2011-Spring 2012) •
Went to Harvard graduate school working in the Dougan Lab at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and studying cancer immunology using mouse models. He graduated with a PhD in immunology from Yale in 2021.

Robert Flynn • Physics and Music, Class of 2013
(January 2012) •
After graduating he took a position as the Orchestral Graduate Associate here at Amherst College. He went on to work in Boston, MA. He is currently a PhD student at Boston University Questrom School of Business.

Cheyenne Teng • Physics, Class of 2013
(January 2012) •
She was in Electrical Engineering graduate school at Princeton working in Gerard Wysocki’s lab on laser spectroscopy. Afterwards she became a principal scientist at Pendar Technologies and now works in robotics at Amazon.

Robert Schwab • BCBP, Class of 2013
(Fall 2011-Spring 2013) •
After graduating he worked at UPenn Medical School in the June lab doing HIV and Leukemia research. He graduated from medical school at UPenn in 2019 and was a resident at Hospital UPenn (HUP). Currently he is a Hematology-oncology Fellow at Hospital UPenn (HUP).

Fan Feng • Chemistry and Economics, Class of 2013
(Spring 2011) •
Currently doing energy trading with DC Energy located in Vienna, VA.

Frederick Shipley • Physics and BCBP, Class of 2013
(Summer 2010-Spring 2013) •
After graduating he worked in the Leifer Lab at Princeton doing research in neuroscience using optogenetics. Afterwards, he was a graduate student in Harvard’s Biophysics program and is working in the Lehtinen Lab. He graduated with his PhD and is currently a data scientist at Chartmetric.

Ysabel Woody • Black Studies, Class of 2012
(Summer 2010) •
After graduating she worked in alumni and parent programs at Amherst College. She worked in Washington DC at the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was thinking about physics graduate school and energy research. Currently, she works in San Francisco in business operations.
Robot Team

Robot Team 2019
Eva Lau ’19, Lynn Fu ’22, Mina Lee ’22
Josh Burns ’22, Ajay Sarathy ’21, Flanagan Waldherr ’22

Robot Team 2018
Devin Epstein ’21, Ingrid Shu ’20, Donna Roscoe ’21,
Allan Phillips ’20, Abdoulaye Sanogo ’19, Ellen Mutter ’18
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