People

Principal Investigator

Vincent Conticello

Vince Conticello leads the Conticello Lab at Emory University. He is also the Director of Undergraduate Research in the Department of Chemistry. Vince received his B.S. degree from the University of Delaware (1985) and his Ph.D. from Northwestern University (1990), where he was a SOHIO Predoctoral Fellow. He completed postdoctoral work at the California Institute of Technology and the University of Massachusetts as an NSF Predoctoral Fellow. Vince’s work at Emory has been recognized with the NSF CAREER Award and a Herman Frasch Foundation Fellowship, among others.

Undergraduate

George Cheng

George is an undergraduate student at Emory in the class of 2022. His research focuses on understanding how the sequences of helical peptides affect the way they self-assemble. His interests outside of the lab include long, socially distant walks on the beach and eating large pizzas in the middle of the night in the dark. He is the president of the Emory Table Tennis Club and a volunteer at the Children’s Hospital of Atlanta. He is originally from San Diego but does not surf. His favorite movie is Ratatouille, feel free to talk to him about it anytime, anywhere.

Graduate Scholar

Ordy Gnewou

Ordy was born and raised in Cameroon. She earned a bachelor’s in chemistry from Lehman College (CUNY) before moving to Emory University for her PhD. In the lab, Ordy works on the design and Cryo-EM characterization of alpha helical nanotubes. At Emory, she is involved in a number of organizations such as the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) and the Association for Women in Science (AWIS).  Outside of school, she practices yoga and loves to eat!

Graduate Scholar

Duong Nguyen

Duong is originally from Vietnam and first came to America for college in 2014. Before coming Emory, she graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a bachelor’s in Chemistry and a minor in Chinese. Her current work at the Conticello lab involves the self-assembly of collagen-mimetic peptides. Besides science, she like to spend time in the world of film photography.

Graduate Scholar

Jessalyn Rogers

Jess earned her BS in Biochemistry from Western Washington University in 2016. Then she returned to her native Bay Area to work in the biotech industry for two years. In 2018, she joined Emory and Vince Conticello’s lab. She works on functionalized, naturally derived helical protein filaments. Jess loves social dancing and music and running with her hound dog, Radish.

Graduate Scholar

Abhinaba Das

Abhi grew up in Kolkata, India, and later won a scholarship to pursue his undergraduate studies at the Indian Institute of Science. He earned his B.S. degree in Chemistry while minoring in Earth Science, and subsequently, his M.S. degree. Before joining the wolf pack here at Emory, Abhi worked with Dr. Chinmoy Ranjan investigating the chemistry and physics of materials catalyzing chemical reactions of interest. More specifically, utilizing XPS and Raman spectroscopy, he tried understanding the properties that control the activity of electrocatalyst materials for oxygen evolution. Utilizing electron microscopy, he now hopes to gain insight into the structure-function relationship of supramolecular assemblies based on peptides.

Undergraduate

Claire Ogilvie

Claire is an undergraduate chemistry student in the class of 2022 with a minor in classical civilizations. Her research focuses on investigating the quaternary structures of peptides. She focuses on the impact of modifying the amino acids and conditions on the resulting structures. She grew up in Houston, TX, and her interests outside of the lab include reading, rock climbing, music. She is involved in Chemory, RUF, and Delta Phi Epsilon on campus. 

Graduate Scholar

Breana Laguera

Graduate Alum

Ayda Gonzalez

Ayda Gonzalez is a third year graduate scholar. Her previous research involved using protein engineering methods to understand the self-assembly of encapsulins. Recently, she started a new project synthesizing peptides and analyzing their self-assembly into nanotubes and other structures.