A native of Korea, KwangLi Park moved to Concord, New Hampshire, at the age of thirteen, and will graduate in May of 2009 with a Bachelor of Science from the University of New Hampshire. She is majoring in biochemistry with a minor in nutrition and is a member of the University Honors Program. KwangLi received a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Abroad from UNH to pursue research at the Pusan National University in Pusan, Korea. KwangLi’s research focused on natural substances that can slow down the aging process, such as foods rich in antioxidants. Her research project stemmed from an interest in Korean herbal medicine. Over the summer KwangLi was able to apply skills learned at UNH to lab work she did at the Aging Tissue Bank. She learned that even when research is well planned, it can fall through. KwangLi plans to pursue graduate studies in nutritional science, and would like to work for a public health agency which focuses on nutrition and its role in improving human susceptibility to disease.
A faculty member of twenty–four years at the University of New Hampshire, Professor Tom Laue teaches in the Molecular, Cellular, and Biomedical Sciences Department, where he specializes in physical biochemistry. Dr. Laue worked with KwangLi Park in the summer of 2008 as her UNH mentor during the research she performed in Korea. He has mentored other students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, but this was his first experience mentoring a student abroad under a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Dr. Laue found KwangLi’s project interesting, and was intrigued by how Korean biologists are working with botanical folk remedies to find their active compounds and their biological reactions in humans.
Read KwangLi Park’s research article The Role of Antioxidants in Combating the Aging Process >>
