About Me

Hi, I'm Ashlin.

I try my best to understand the world around me and I'm particularly interested in biomolecules and computational tools to study them.

I'm a post-doctoral fellow at the Computer Aided Drug Design (CADD) Center at the University of Maryland Baltimore with Prof. Alex MacKerell. Here, I optimize lead drug candidates for anxiety, collaborating with medicinal chemists. I'm also working towards developing better Machine Learning models to predict how drug molecules permeate membranes.

Previously, I worked with Prof. Alan Grossfield at the University of Rochester Medical Center towards my doctoral thesis to understand the free energy landscapes of phase separation in lipid bilayers using molecular dynamics simulations enhanced by weighted ensemble techniques.

During my grad school, I interned in Moderna twice to understand how lipids and RNA molecules interact from the perspective of Lipid Nanoparticles (LNP) optimization. I also helped the Moderna team benchmark different binding free-energy calculation tools toward internal goals.

Outside the research hours, you can find me hiking in the local state parks, visiting museums in and around Washington, D.C, Biking the trails around me, listening to audiobooks, sweating in a HIIT workout, or randomly hopping cafes near me.