It's like a magic trick. With the flick of a switch, Cole DeForest and his lab can transform human cells. It starts with a group of stem cells that have the potential to become any other type of cell found in the human body. Most labs manipulate these cells with temperature, pH, or chemical factors, but DeForest and his team use light-based chemistry.

David Masiello is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and an adjunct assistant professor of Applied Mathematics. He runs a team of chemistry, physics, and applied math graduate students and postdocs called the Masiello Group. “We’re theorists, and we do simulations as well,” Masiello said. “We have no laboratories. Everything we do is paper and pencil, and white boards, and writing computer codes.”