Student Scholar Spotlight – Elijah Hix
Student Scholar Spotlight – Elijah Hix
Featured student work during their time as a college scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Elijah Hix
This spring, I was fortunate enough to be named one of the 2021 Goldwater Scholars in chemistry for my work on enzyme stereospecificity elucidation using a type-1 polyketide synthase ketoreductase. The Goldwater scholarship is the most prestigious award that an undergraduate in STEM research can earn and as such this is a huge boost to my early career! This entire process has served as a headfirst introduction into the work that goes into applying for other national fellowships such as NDSEG and the NSF-GRFP. All around I have learned so much by narrowing my research and being able to present it in an effective way and I am already getting to put these skills to the test as I am now applying for the aforementioned fellowships as well as graduate school applications.
In addition to the Goldwater, I also received an award of excellence at the 2021 UT EUReKa conference for my other research I conducted regarding mechanism elucidation of a tin centered porphyrin catalyst for electrocatalytic proton reduction. This proved to be a fantastically challenging project and helped me deepen my skills in quantum chemistry. With the tools I obtained I am now able to put them towards a fully independent project that will soon produce publishable work!
Even more recently than these awards, I was invited to give a talk at the Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium at Rice university. GCURS is one of the most prestigious undergraduate research conferences in the US. It pulls together many of the best researchers to learn from each other, see the state of research, and network and as such is a huge opportunity for me. I have presented my work at conferences in the past but nothing has come close to this and it will really help boost my career. I am excited to see what other people are doing in the world of chemistry and chemical biology and network with other undergraduate researchers.