The McCarty group - Spring 2023
Group hike to celebrate Alden's graduation - Spring 2023
The McCarty group - Summer 2022
Celebrating Christian, Kayla, and Josue graduating - Spring 2022
Mini golf and pizza! - Fall 2022
Kyle giving Dr. McCarty a face full of pie at the annual Chemistry Department picnic. He won the raffle with $1 - Spring 2022
Hot-Pot celebration for Kyle's defense of thesis and graduation from the Master's program in Chemistry at WWU. - Summer 2023
Group Members
Principal Investigator
James (Jay) McCarty
email: jay.mccarty@wwu.edu
Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry
Biography
I received my B.S. in biochemistry from the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, and my Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Oregon. I completed my dissertation under Marina Guenza where my research focused on developing a novel coarse-graining and multi-scale modeling theory for computer simulations of complex macromolecular fluids. While at Oregon, I was also involved in the Science Literacy Program, which is aimed at improving the scientific awareness and general scientific knowledge of non-science majors at the university.
Following graduate school, I worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the research group of Michele Parrinello at ETH Z​ürich and Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Lugano, Switzerland. My work in the Parrinello group focused on the development of enhanced sampling methods for studying rare events from atomistic simulations, which I applied to study phase transitions in ionic solids, protein conformational changes, and chemical reaction kinetics. Prior to my current appointment at Western, I held a joint postdoctoral appointment in the research groups of professor Joan-Emma Shea in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and professor Glenn H. Fredrickson in the Materials Research Laboratory at the University of California Santa Barbara. My research at UCSB involved using computational methods based on polymer field theory to study the liquid-liquid phase separation of intrinsically disordered proteins.
Currently, my interests lie in the broad field of soft condensed matter and biophysics, where I am interested in applying statistical mechanics to study the structure and dynamics of macromolecules using molecular simulations.
For more information about current projects, please visit our research page. My academic CV can be found here, along with a list of publications. (For an updated list of publications, please refer to my Google Scholar page). Also, feel free to check out my github page or profile on Research gate.
To see how I am academically related to Enrico Fermi and others, check out my academic family tree.
Graduate Students
Kayla Croney (2021 - present)
Kayla joined the group as a B.S. student in Biochemistry in the Spring of 2021 and is now a M.S. graduate student as of Fall 2022. Her research uses metadynamics to characterize the energetics and kinetics governing the interactions between a ligand and its protein target. Currently, she is investigating the product release of the anti-cancer drug 5-fluorocytosine from the active site of yeast cytosine deaminase. She is also working on investigating the role of mutants in sortase enzyme specificity and target recognition. Kayla has a B.S. in Biochemistry from Western Washington University. Kayla's hometown is the beautiful island of Barbados where she enjoys drawing, video games, anime/manga, as well as hiking in the great outdoors.
David Cummins (2022 - present)
David joined the group as a M.S. student in Chemistry in the Fall of 2022. He is working on applying a variational enhanced sampling approach to enzyme kinetics using hybrid QM/MM simulations. David has a B.S. in Biochemistry from Western Washington University where he learned valuable skills as an undergraduate researcher. David's hometown is right here in Bellingham, WA where he enjoys playing Magic the Gathering, pickle ball, and taking his sons to enjoy the splendorous outdoors of the Pacific Northwest.
Undergraduate Students
Ray Brock (2024 - present)
Erin McCoy (2024 - present)
Former Group Members
Amir Shahzad (B.S. Biology- General Biology, 2023)
Kyle Whitham (M.S. Chemistry, 2023)
Alden Harris (B.S. Biology- Molecular and Cell, 2023)
Isabelle Kim (B.A. Biochemistry, 2022)
Kayla Croney (B.S. Biochemistry, 2021) (currently in MS program at WWU)
Clarissa Huisman - REU student from Simpson College, IA (in lab summer of 2022)
Christian Phillips (B.S. Chemistry, 2021)
Josué Claros (B.S. Biochemistry, 2021)
Edwin Enciso (M.S. Chemistry, 2021)
Cass Leonard (B.S. Biochemistry, 2020)