Zeke is a postdoctoral research associate in Prof. Qiang Cui's group at Boston University. Here, I have been using multi-scale molecular dynamics, enhanced sampling, and machine learning techniques to understand the interactions between polystyrene nanoparticles and lipid membranes. We have developed a technique which allows easier determination of lipid phase transition temperatures by combining machine learning with generalized replica exchange molecular dynamics. Our more recent work has focused on understanding the unqiue interactions between polystyrene and membranes, and how that impacts water molecules present within the membrane.

Background:
Zeke graduated from the University of Missouri in 2017, where he used molecular dynamics simulations to understand vibrational excitation and relaxation within shock tubes, working with Professors Donald Thompson and Thomas Sewell. He then moved to the University of Kansas, where he worked with his graduate advisors Professors Brian Laird and Ward Thompson and was funded on a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. His dissertation work, "Beyond Arrhenius: Fluctuation Theory for Dynamics," developed new approaches for obtaining and understanding activation energies using molecular dynamics simulations and won the University of Kansas Argersinger Dissertation award as well as the American Physical Society Justin Jankunas Doctoral Dissertation award. Zeke was granted his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2021, and then moved to BU for his postdoctoral research.