Valedictorian Excels Across Disciplines

Described by his professors as “…confident, fearless, industrious and amazingly able,” valedictorian Felix Jin CC’16 has excelled both inside and outside the classroom. Jin, who for the last two years worked 14 hours a week in University Professor and Nobel Laureate Martin Chalfie’s lab while taking piano lessons through the Department of Music, graduated with a double major in biochemistry and physics and an invitation to join Duke’s MSTP (M.D.-Ph.D.) program in the fall. While researching the model organism C. elegans in Chalfie’s lab and engaging in daily piano practice, Jin also was president and vice president consecutively for the Society of Physics Students.

Jin has long been interested in both science and music. Before college, he spent a few summers volunteering in his father’s research lab at the Aab Cardiovascular Institute at Rochester. He also took piano lessons and music theory classes in middle and high school at The University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, ultimately earning a Pre-College diploma from the program. Given the equal importance that he placed on music, physics and biochemistry in high school, Jin knew that having access to resources in these fields would be necessary at college.

Though Jin applied to colleges broadly at first, he was ultimately drawn to Columbia’s urban environment as well as to its access to both high-level professors and musical opportunities. He says, “I saw plentiful research opportunities at Columbia, and Manhattan provided great places to engage in music.”

During the fall of his freshman year, Jin began weekly piano lessons with Professor Michael Skelly. He also ventured into the city’s vast expanse of musical offerings, frequenting both the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall. Additionally, he attended the long-running Bach Concert Series at Miller Theatre.

While participating in Columbia’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program the summer after his sophomore year, Jin worked with Chalfie, a Nobel Laureate, on his study of the model organism C. elegans. As Jin says, “Model organisms give scientists a simplified context through which to study the shared mechanisms of life. The study of C. elegans has already led to many fundamental discoveries. By understanding how C. elegans works, we can better research human biology and disease.”

As a result of this research, Jin co-published a paper in the life sciences journal Cell Reports with Chalfie and Chaogu Zheng GSAS’15, entitled “Hox Proteins Act as Transcriptional Guarantors to Ensure Terminal Differentiation” (Vol.13, No.7, Nov. 2015, pp 1343-52).

Jin is grateful for his experience in Chalfie’s lab, citing his work there as key to his growth as a scientific researcher: “Working in Dr. Chalfie’s lab was a very intellectual experience. The research is heavily driven by the smart and hard-working graduate students and post-docs. The freedom of Dr. Chalfie’s style gave everyone the chance to try new things and explore innovative ideas. My experience in Dr. Chalfie’s lab trained me to be more efficient, resourceful and thorough in my research process.”

Along with Jin’s biochemistry and physics professors, Chalfie recommended Jin for the award of valedictorian. “Felix Jin is an astonishingly gifted and intelligent student, probably the best undergraduate that I have ever had in my lab,” Chalfie says.

This summer, Jin traveled to China and then to North Carolina to begin the MSTP program. He has already secured a piano at Duke and plans to continue playing and keeping up his technique on his own. Columbia, he says, has “been a great way to expand my academic pursuits and to enliven one of my many interests. I am glad to have had the opportunity to remain so well-rounded in this respect, and I feel that my undergraduate career is very much in alignment with Columbia College’s core mission.”