Passa Pungchai
I am a 3rd year undergraduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, majoring in bioengineering. I blog at the Daily Bruin about socks and coffee (sometimes).I am currently involved in two research projects. At UCLA, I'm an undergraduate researcher at the Dynamic Nucleic Acid Systems Lab , mentored under Dr. Elisa Franco. My project focuses on modeling DNA self-assembly circuits with feedback using ordinary differential equations (ODEs). This project is ongoing.
For the 2020-21 school year, I will also be working as a visiting undergraduate researcher at the Douglas Lab at UCSF, developing novel applications of DNA origami, mentored under Dr. Shawn Douglas.
In my freetime, I enjoy pondering gastronomy, playing strategy games such as Pokemon and Civilization VI, and attending symphony performances.
>Projects
This was the first iteration of a python tool meant to automatically draw out the isometric views of various simple solid figures when given a set of dimensions. This is part of an ongoing project in the Douglas Lab where we want to generate a library of very simple, ready to use origami shapes. This tool was meant to make those shapes easier to visualize, and outputs the figures into a vector graphics file format called "SVG", allowing for easier editing and preventing loss of resolution. Fun fact: a lot of linear algebra and computer graphics concepts were integrated into this project!
Space junk is a pretty *trashy* problem. That is, as of Jan 2019, 128 million pieces of small space debris is in orbit. This complicates future missions, increasing the probability of a collision. As a team engineer in the Bruin Space Sandbox division, I designed a novel space waste mechanism to dispose of space waste in a low-energy and efficient way. We submitted our proposal to the NASA Space Apps Contest.