Postdoctoral Associates Old

Jonathan Chung

Travelling in a fried-out combie on a hippie trail, head-full of zombie, this Vanderwallaby hails from the great upside-down island nation of Stralia. He managed to dodge enough snakebites and deadly spiders to graduate with his bachelors from the University of Sydney, where he got his feet wet in some analogue synthesis under the guidance of Professor Richard Payne. Apparently he impressed them enough to continue his PhD in the Payne lab where he endured to solve Australia’s problems through the synthesis of antifungal peptides, anti-plasmodial polyketides and some other anti-some odds. During his PhD, he decided he had enough of the weather you get from being 33.8688º south of the equator, and decided to travel 33.6846º north of the equator to Irvine, California. Fun fact, Jono the Grey was a visiting researcher in the Vanderwal lab. Over the course of his one year stint, he made impressive progress towards the synthesis of a complex diterpene before heading back down undah to finish his PhD. Not one to give up, he’s returned to us as postdoc Jono the White to finish what he started. On your average day you can find Jono shouting “ohhhhh noooooohhhhh!,” blasting electronic music, staring at a toilet shouting “it’s flushing the wrong way!”, asking “how you goin’ mate?”, heading to the pub after most (all) work days to order a beloved Fosters, or hanging upside down just to feel a bit more at home.