Post by Sarah McGuinness

I am so delighted to announce that I successfully defended my PhD thesis!!! I'm so grateful and humbled to have gone through this experience with the encouragement and support of my friends, family, and colleagues. I've learned more than I ever even imagined, but I still feel like there's still so much more learning I want to do! Starting my PhD during the pandemic, I went from not knowing how to even navigate a Linux terminal to running hundreds of simulations on high-performance computing (HPC) clusters! Most of all, I'm so excited and appreciative that I get to combine my love for both art and science by creating informative and beautiful visualizations of molecular structure and data. (I've attached a few of my favorite slides and illustrations from my defense presentation!) As for what's next, for now I am transitioning into my role as Postdoctoral Researcher at the Khalili Biophysics Lab and continuing my role as Adjunct Professor for UIC's Biomedical Visualization program. In the meantime, I will be searching for a full-time role which allows me to pursue my passion for molecular visualization and/or data visualization!