My Masters research at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in the lab of Chin-Chuan Wei focused on the molecular aspects of calcium signaling. There, I explored how various EF-hand containing proteins bind calcium and undergo subsequent conformational changes to interact with their cognate binding partners. I used a variety of biophysical approaches to explore these fundamental macromolecular interactions including isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and fluorescence-based methods (equilibrium titrations, lifetime, transient kinetics) for direct measurements of affinities, protein stabilities and conformational changes, thermodynamics, and kinetics.