Office Hours: For an appointment, please
Personal Statement
Monique Brewster is interested in the science at the boundary of chemistry and biology. She completed a bachelor’s degree at MIT in Biology with a chemistry minor and went on to complete a PhD in Rachelle Gaudet’s Lab here in the Harvard MCB department. In her research, Monique Brewster studied two ion channels, TRPA1 and TRPV1, which play integral roles in peripheral neurons as sensors of noxious stimuli. Her work focused on using biochemistry and structural insights to gain a better understanding of how those channels are regulated by small molecules and other stimuli. In general, she enjoys considering biology on the molecular level, where proteins can be viewed as tiny machines following familiar principles of chemistry and physics to accomplish complicated tasks. First as a Preceptor and now as a Lecturer, she teaches with LS1a, a large introductory-level course that integrates chemistry and biology and MCB 65: Physical Biochemistry, which dives a bit deeper into biochemistry, thermodynamics, and (the beauty of) structural biology.
When she’s not teaching or advising, you are most likely to find her reading a good sci-fi book or enjoying the wealth of music available in the Cambridge area.