Roya Zandi is an American

biophysicist Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. B ...

whose research involves the

self-assembly Self-assembly is a process in which a disordered system of pre-existing components forms an organized structure or pattern as a consequence of specific, local interactions among the components themselves, without external direction. When the ...

of the

capsid A capsid is the protein shell of a virus, enclosing its genetic material. It consists of several oligomeric (repeating) structural subunits made of protein called protomers. The observable 3-dimensional morphological subunits, which may or may ...

s of

virus A virus is a wikt:submicroscopic, submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living Cell (biology), cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and ...

es. She is a professor of physics and astronomy at the

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. Th ...

, and the director of the university's biophysics program.

Education and career

Zandi studied physics at

California State University, Northridge California State University, Northridge (CSUN or Cal State Northridge) is a public university in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. With a total enrollment of 38,551 students (as of Fall 2021), it has the second largest un ...

, graduating

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...

in 1992 and continuing for a master's degree in 1994. She went to the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

(UCLA) for doctoral study in physics, completing her Ph.D. in 2001. Her dissertation, ''Nucleosomes and Polyelectrolytes'', was supervised by

Joseph Rudnick Joseph Alan Rudnick (born 1944) is an American physicist and professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UCLA. Rudnick currently serves as the senior dean of the UCLA College of Letters and Science and dean of the Division of Physic ...

. After postdoctoral research at UCLA and the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

, Zandi became a faculty member at UC Riverside in 2005.

Recognition

UC Riverside gave Zandi their Commitment to Graduate Diversity Award in 2019, and named her as Endowed Term Chair for Inclusive Excellence in 2021, for her efforts in encouraging and training a diverse group of students. She was named a

Fellow of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its moti ...

(APS) in 2022, after a nomination from the APS Division of Biological Physics, "for the application of fundamental theories of elasticity, electrostatics, and phase transitions to elucidate unique physical phenomena arising in viral capsid formation, notably the origin of icosahedral symmetry, the role of disclinations, and the branched topology of RNA genomes".

References

External links

Zandi Lab
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zandi, Roya Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American physicists American women physicists Biophysicists California State University, Northridge alumni University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of California, Riverside faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society