Katelyn Radford

Kate is a graduate student in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Caltech. She received her undergraduate in Biochemistry from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) in 2019, where she specialized in membrane protein biochemistry and membrane mimetics with Prof. Franck Duong. Following graduation, Kate volunteered with Prof. William Clemons for six months at Caltech, assisting former postdoctoral researcher Dr. Nadia Riera-Faraone with her work to study the structure of MraY via cryo-EM. She then got a job as a laboratory technician at Columbia University with Prof. Chi-Min Ho, a specialist in the structural biology of P. falciparum proteins, assisting with the early stages of establishing the lab - however, Kate's position was interrupted by the pandemic. Since beginning at Caltech, Kate's research has leveraged structural biology techniques (cryo-EM and crystallography) to study a diverse array of proteins centered around human health. In the Chou Lab, Kate primarily studies aspects of autophagy using structural- and cell-biology based methods, though she is also involved in work surrounding the p97 adaptor protein PLAA. Prior to her career in biochemistry, Kate was a linguist focusing on the neurobiology of speech, and she holds a bachelor's (UBC) and master's (Oxon.) in linguistics. Outside of lab, Kate runs a semi-professional choral octet (OcTech) and founded Caltech's student chapter of the American Society for Microbiology. In moments of free time, she paints, gardens, and spends time with friends.