Former Summer Student Jessica Hatcher Wins Research Award

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) Computing Sciences-sponsored summer student Jessica Hatcher from Fort Valley State University in Georgia won a first place award for her research poster “Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships (QSAR) for Biological Effects of Synthetic Cathinones” at the 74th Joint Annual Meeting of The National Institute of Science/ Beta Kappa Chi, held March 15 - 18 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Hatcher was mentored by the Computational Research Division's Bert de Jong and sponsored by the lab's Visiting Faculty Program (VFP).

“My internship at Berkeley Lab was a life changing experience. Whether it was working on our project or attending seminars, I learned many useful applications of computational chemistry and developed future research interests,” says Hatcher.  “This internship was my first research experience and exposed me to many new uprising technologies and other areas of research that I didn’t even know existed. It was a great privilege to work Berkeley Lab and I hope to return next year."

“It is great to the see the positive impact Berkley Lab has on underrepresented students and universities through this program,” says de Jong, who is a senior scientist and group lead for computational chemistry, materials and climate within CRD.