Charlene Gopatta

B.Sc., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2023

She was born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand. She moved to the US when she was 18 and spent a senior year of high school at Emma Willard School, an all-girls boarding school in Troy, NY. She received my bachelor’s degree with Cum Laude and Highest Distinction in the curriculum from UIUC, where she first joined Professor Ying Diao’s chemical engineering research group to study a chiral twist-bend nematic phase of an achiral conjugated polymer. After discovering her interest in the field of organic chemistry and drug discovery and development, she decided to join Professor Martin D. Burke’s group to explore the area of methodology development to optimize palladium-catalyzed C(sp3)-C(sp2) Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reactions. Outside of Lab, she enjoys cafe-hopping, taking photos, playing video games, and playing badminton.

Fun Facts

• I intensely tear up when yawning – to the degree that people would think I'm crying. So, if you see me covered up in tears with a red nose in the morning, please ignore me. I'm not crying, just yawning.
• I love eating very spicy food. It is sometimes almost too spicy for human consumption.
• I'm super scared of reptiles, especially snakes. I often threw my phone to the wall because the snake photos randomly showed up on the phone.