Prof. Dr. Xianghong Qian is a full professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering. Prior to joining UAF, she was a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Colorado State University. She has a BS degree in chemistry from Nanjing University, China (1988), and a Ph.D. in physical/theoretical chemistry from George Washington University, USA (1997). She did her postdoctoral research in condensed matter theory at the Max-Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics, Germany (1997–2000). She also has experience in industry and at a national laboratory before joining academia. Dr. Qian’s major research interests focus on investigating the fundamental processes involved in carbohydrate chemistry, smart polymers for drug delivery and protein purifications, virus clearance, and protein folding and misfolding using complementary experimental, theoretical, and computational tools. Ab initio and classical molecular dynamics simulation methods combined with static quantum mechanical calculations are used to elucidate the many underlying chemical and biochemical processes at the molecular level. She is the recipient of the 2009 NSF CAREER award and has over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapter publications.