Past Fulbrighters/Case Studies
Joseph Herman
All-disciplines Postgraduate Awards, 2009
Fulbright Project: Special Student Programme, Harvard University
Originally from Manchester, UK, Joe studied Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he specialised in theoretical and computational chemistry. As a Fulbright Scholar, he spent a year at Harvard in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, investigating the mechanisms of protein evolution with members of the Shakhnovich group.
As well as undertaking research, Joe also took the opportunity to pursue graduate courses in Statistics and Computational Biology at Harvard and MIT, studying Bayesian methodology and Monte Carlo techniques with leading figures in these fields, and using some of these methods to develop novel approaches for studying protein dynamics.
During his year in the US, Joe also had an opportunity to explore a diverse set of issues under the heading of Science and Technology Studies (STS). In particular, struck by the increasing promotion of interdisciplinary research in the natural sciences, Joseph developed an interest in the perspectives on interdisciplinarity offered by social theory and anthropology, and conducted research with Prof. Sheila Jasanoff into how political and epistemological considerations might shape scientific attitudes towards interdisciplinarity.
Joe returned to the UK in 2009 to take up a place in the Life Sciences Interface Doctoral Training Centre at the University of Oxford. His research is currently in the area of structural bioinformatics.
© US-UK Fulbright Commission 2008