Personal History Statement

I have a special reason for appreciating every opportunity I have to obtain an education and explore my talents: both of my parents had to leave school at the age of thirteen and work full-time to support themselves and my grandparents. This was at the very beginning of the period that eventually came to be known as the “economic miracle” of Taiwan. My father has at various times worked as a mechanic and as a worker in a rubber production facility, and my mother continues to work long hours as a spa therapist at a small beauty salon.

In contrast, I was born during an era when my country was undergoing enormous change. Forty years of martial law came to an end when I was five, and a new government administration included a group of technical bureaucrats who successfully pushed for public funding of basic science research and education. I benefited from those decisions in high school and as an undergraduate; unlike students in many other developing countries, I am very fortunate in having several options for my future. My decision is influenced by recent advancements in the biological sciences that include animal cloning and human genome mapping.

One of my best adolescent experiences was attending the 2001 Wu Chien-Shiung Science Camp. I had some minor surgery just before the camp, but the physical pain was not going to stop me from meeting Nobel laureates Steve Chu, Douglas Osheroff, and Yuan-Tseh Lee. You can imagine my excitement when I was selected to explain my proposed solution to HIV on a stage in front of hundreds of experienced scientists, despite not having any laboratory experience. I was very nervous, but I was also running on adrenaline from an all-night brainstorming session that I had shared with my teammates. The source of my energy that night was the spirit of exploration, and I was hooked by the experience.

Every creative mind must find its niche, and mine is in biophysics. I enjoy working with the big picture of biomolecule binding energetics, structural dynamics, and motion in living cells. However, as my undergraduate mentor Dr. Chia-Ching Chang says, “Straight A’s do not guarantee a successful research career.” I try to keep in mind my commitment and the work ethic that my parents taught me. Accordingly, I was willing to work on my master’s thesis research into the early morning hours, excited with anticipation at reading data compilation and calculation results at 2 a.m. Moments like those have cemented my interest in becoming a biophysicist, using my energy and enthusiasm to explore the hidden rhythms of biological phenomena.