Department of Chemistry

 Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Dr. Huiwang Ai has been recently selected as a Hellman Fellow at UCR Riverside for 2013-14. Ai will receive a $30,000 grant to support his research project, "Spatiotemporal control of metal ion signaling with engineered proteins", which will explore ways to enable optogenetic regulation of cell signaling. The Hellman Fellows program at UCR began in 2011 with a $1-million donation from the Hellman Fellows Fund. First established by Warren and Chris Hellman in 1994, the purpose of the Hellman Fellows program is to support the research of promising assistant professors. The Hellman Fellows program is active at 13 institutions, including nine campuses in the UC System. Ai received his B.S. from Tsinghua University (Beijing) in 2003, Ph.D. from University of Alberta in 2008. He joined the Chemistry faculty in July 2011 after his postdoctoral training at The Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla). Ai's main research interests are in the area of bioanalytical chemistry and chemical biology. In particular, his group develops fluorescent protein based biosensors, and new methods to label and enhance proteins.