John M. Franck

John completed his PhD thesis under the guidance of Prof. Alex Pines at Berkeley, studying sophisticated methods of NMR pulse design and the development of portable and transportable NMR instruments. He worked as an Elings Prize Postdoctoral Fellow (California NanoSystems Institute) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, under the guidance of Prof. Songi Han. There, he developed new, sensitive technologies for investigating the properties of water at the surfaces of proteins, polymers, lipids, and DNA. He completed further postdoctoral studies and served as a research associate at the Advanced Center for the ESR Technology Center (ACERT) at Cornell University, under the guidance of Prof. Jack Freed. There, he participated in studies that advanced the forefront of high-field high-frequency pulse ESR; techniques that provide detailed dynamic characterizations of proteins and other biomolecular systems. These technologies are challenged only by difficulties with probing samples that generated short-lived signal; while at ACERT Prof. Franck pioneered work that enabled detection of shorter-lived species than could be proved previously. After joining Syracuse as a PI and setting up his lab, he received the NSF CAREER award (2022). When ACERT expanded to become an independent 501(c)3 research nonprofit, he relocated his lab to ACERT.

Atahan Garip

current PhD student, Cornell University

Atahan is a PhD student in the Applied and Engineering Physics program at Cornell University, working with the Franck Lab at ACERT. He is developing a fully open and automated temperature-controlled ODNP system.

Romana Shathy

current PhD student, Syracuse University

Romana synthesizes small molecule spin labels that allow her to probe the microviscosity (via ESR) and the local diffusivity (via ODNP) of small pockets of water. Beginning with reverse micelles, she plans to expand her studies to a variety of (especially energy-relevant) porous materials. With the lab’s transition to ACERT, Romana continued her research at Syracuse University in Prof. Weiwei Zheng’s group, where she is currently finishing her PhD.

Warren Kincaid

current PhD student, Syracuse University

warren has two projects: in one, he develops efficient protocols for site-directed spin labeling and expression of the light-activated proton pump proteorhodopsin, and investigates sites with anomalous hydration along the surface or proteorhodopsin. In the other project, he employes Ansys Electronics to design dual NMR-ESR resonators with improved sensitivity. He focuses on developing new simulation protocols that apply broadly to the design of couple microwave resonators. With the lab’s transition to ACERT, Warren continued his research at Northwestern University in Prof. Songi Han’s lab, where he is currently completing his PhD research on the hydration of antifreeze proteins, as well as finalizing his publications with ACERT.

Alex automated large portions of the ODNP experiment and data processing, and performed detailed investigations to improve the sensitivity of the ODNP measurement, applying these techniques to the study of hydration water on the surface of Ras. Alex earned her PhD and now serves as an Instrumentation Specialist at LOTTE Biologics, a biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility near Syracuse, NY.

Alec employed both ODNP and ²H NMR to observe confined water inside reverse micelles.

He also pioneered the DCCT technique for the display of maximally multiplexed information about the various coherence pathway signals present in an NMR experiment; he applied this technique to identify faint signals in low-field NMR and to perform mean-field-averaged correlation alignment to dramatically improve signal to noise and signal quality in the presence of variable magnetic fields.

Alec currently works at Bruker Biospin.

Farhana performed site-directed spin labeling on the protein K-Ras.

Sam refined a protocol for the expression and site-directed spin labeling of Proteorhodopsin, and also worked on overmodulation reconstruction. Sam currently works at the Aldon Corporation as a Product Developer.