Graduate students Nikki Cheung (Clubb Group), Jonathan Jih (Zhou Group), Eileen Olivares (Loo Group), and Lily Taylor (Rodriguez Group) have been selected as 2025–26 Fowler Fellows and shared their research at a special event on Oct. 15, 2025.
About the 2025-26 Audree Fowler Fellows in Protein Science
Nikki Cheung is a fifth-year Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology (BBSB) graduate student mentored by Professor Robert Clubb. Prior to UCLA, Nikki earned her B.S in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied the mTORC1 signaling pathway in the lab of Professor Roberto Zoncu and developed plant-based food alternatives in the lab of Professor Ricardo San Martin.
At UCLA, Nikki’s research is focused on characterizing protein-based virulence factors employed by gram-positive bacteria to invade and infect hosts. Her current work investigates how these protein complexes are assembled and anchored to the cell surface, which could inform novel therapeutic strategies to target antimicrobial-resistant pathogens.
Jonathan Jih is a sixth-year Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology (BBSB) Ph.D. candidate in the lab of Professor Hong Zhou at UCLA. Jonathan earned his B.S. in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics from UCLA, where he became involved in cryoEM research and solved the first atomic structure of a human herpesvirus. Jonathan went on to leverage his cryoEM expertise in academic and industry research consulting.
At his current post, Jonathan continues to push the frontiers of cryoEM research using machine learning-enhanced techniques to augment structure determination. Jonathan has solved structures of viral intracellular transport machinery enabling human cytomegaloviruses to traffic within host cells, a multi-partite RNA editing complex from the human parasite Trypanosoma brucei, and is currently investigating how double-stranded DNA viruses package enormous genomes into compact, highly-pressurized capsids. In addition to his research activities, Jonathan serves the Southern California cryoEM community by building and maintaining the high performance compute infrastructure at the California Nanosystems Institute.
Eileen Olivares is a fifth-year Biochemistry, Molecular, and Structural Biology (BMSB) graduate student at UCLA, working in Professor Joseph Loo’s lab. She earned her B.S. in Biochemistry and M.S. in Healthcare Systems Engineering from Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles, CA).
Early in her undergraduate career, Eileen worked in Professor Martina Ramirez’s lab, investigating the genetic diversity of the silver garden spider (Argiope argentata). She later joined Professor David Moffet’s lab, where she studied the aggregation of islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP) across species with differing susceptibility to diabetes.
At UCLA, Eileen continues her work on amyloid proteins, developing and optimizing mass spectrometry approaches to characterize a broad range of amyloidogenic proteins—including α-synuclein, amyloid beta, tau, and IAPP—across their monomeric, oligomeric, and fibrillar states. Her research also extends to characterizing therapeutics designed to target these proteins. Ultimately, she aims to use mass spectrometry to advance our understanding of how toxic protein assemblies contribute to disease and how they can be disrupted through therapeutic intervention.
Lily Taylor is a graduate student in the Biochemistry, Molecular and Structural Biology (BMSB) program, working with Professor Jose Rodriguez. Her work aims to determine the native structures and dynamics of viral proteins, providing molecular insights into viral infection mechanisms and guiding the development of antiviral treatments.
About Dr. Audree Fowler
A strong supporter of the basic sciences and medicine at UCLA, alumna Dr. Audree Fowler (B.S. ’56 chemistry, Ph.D. ’63 biochemistry) established the Audree V. Fowler Fellows in Protein Science in 2008. Fowler was Director UCLA Protein Microsequencing Facility from 1984-1999 and is a Researcher Emeritus of the UCLA Department of Biological Chemistry. She is one of the first four women to receive a Ph.D. from the UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry. In 2018, the women were awarded the department’s 2018 Alumni Legacy Awards in recognition of their achievements in life, and generous support and service to UCLA. “The sciences gave me a great life. Now I want to help others have access to the same opportunities I enjoyed,” Fowler explained when she established the Fowler Fellowships endowment.
Applications for the fellowships are solicited from graduate students in the Molecular Biology Interdepartmental (MBI) Ph.D. Program, Biological Chemistry, and Chemistry & Biochemistry Departments. In addition to presenting their research at a special seminar, the recipients each receive a $5,000 award.
Previous Fowler Fellows from the UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
2024-25 – Andrew Goring (Clubb lab), Eric Pang (S. Clarke and Rodriguez labs), and Miranda Villanueva (Backus lab)
2023-24 – Alexandra Turmon (Backus lab), Cindy Wang (S. Clarke and C. Clarke labs)
2022-23 – Cody Gillman (Gonen lab), Declan Evans (Houk lab), Troy Lowe (S. Clarke lab), Ashley Julio (Backus lab), and Alex Stevens (Hong Zhou lab)
2021-22 – Weixian Deng (Wohlschlegel/Plath labs), Yi Xiao “Sean” Jiang (Eisenberg lab), Maria Flores (Rodriguez lab), Carter Lantz (Loo lab), and Logan Richards (Rodriguez lab).
2020-21 – Janine Fu (Loo lab), Calina Glynn (Rodriguez lab), and Jiahui Lu (Eisenberg lab)
2019-20 – David Boyer (Eisenberg lab), Orlando Martinez (Clubb lab) and John Muroski (Loo lab)
2018-19 – Scott McConnell (Clubb lab), Kevin Murray (Eisenberg lab), Rebeccah Warmack (S. Clarke lab)
2017-18 – Michael Hughes (Eisenberg lab), Yuxi Liu (Yeates lab), Kanishk Jain (S. Clarke lab)
2016-17 – Brendan Amer (Clubb Lab) and Jeff Vinokur (Bowie Lab)
2015-16 – Henry Chan (Feigon lab), Smriti Sangwan (Eisenberg lab), Nicholas Woodall (Bowie lab)
2014-15 – Dan McNamara (Yeates lab)
2013-14 – Alex Jacobitz (Clubb lab), Alexander Patananan (S. Clarke lab), Carly Ferguson (Loo lab)
2012-13 – Letian Xie (C. Clarke lab), Anni Zhao (Eisenberg lab)
2011-12 – Timothy Anderson (Clubb lab), Soohong Kim (Weiss lab)
2010-11 – Zeynep Durer (Reiser lab), Cecilia Zurita-Lopez (S. Clarke lab)
2009-10 – Luki Goldschmidt (Eisenberg lab), Kristofer Webb (S. Clarke lab), Sheng Yin (Loo lab)
2008-09 – Nathan Joh (Bowie lab), Neil King (Yeates lab)
Photos courtesy of Helen Houldsworth, the Molecular Biology Institute.
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penjen@g.ucla.edu.
