People

Elsa Yan was born and raised in Hong Kong and graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She came to the U.S. to work with Eisenthal on nonlinear optics and obtained her Ph.D. from Columbia University. She then became a postdoctoral fellow with Mathies at UC Berkeley and a visiting fellow with Sakmar at The Rockefeller University. Subsequently, she joined The Rockefeller University as a research assistant professor. In 2007, she was recruited as Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Yale and was promoted to Full Professor in 2014.

Kristian graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 2019 with a B.S. in Chemistry. After graduation, he was a research intern with Halliburton in Saudi Arabia and worked as a laboratory chemist in Germany. He is pursuing a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at Yale where he uses chiral SFG spectroscopy to characterize RNA secondary structures at interfaces and to study the structure of their first hydration shells.

When not working, Kristian enjoys traveling, playing soccer, baking and cooking.

Joined in 2021.

Steve graduated from the Pennsylvania State University in 2022 with a B.S. in
chemistry, where his undergraduate research studied the Hofmeister ions on optical
properties of rhodamine dyes. Now he is a Ph.D. student in Physical Chemistry at Yale
in the Yan Lab. Steve’s research focuses on understanding the relationship between
protein stability with the first hydration shell structures.

Outside of the lab, Steve enjoys cooking and watching sports.

Joined in 2023.

Patrick graduated from the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 2023 with a B.S. in chemistry. He did his undergraduate research in the lab of Dr. Juan Artés Vivancos, using the scanning tunneling microscopic-assisted break junction method to detect nucleic acids at the single-molecule level. Now, he is a Biophysical Ph.D. student at Yale, investigating the mechanisms of stabilization of therapeutic proteins.

When not in the lab, Patrick enjoys reading, discovering new music, and watching Boston sports.

Joined in 2024.

Nick graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2024 with an A.B. in Physics and Chemistry, where he worked on the development of polarizable force fields for use in molecular dynamics simulations. Now, he is a Theoretical Chemistry Ph.D student at Yale, where he is coadvised by Elsa Yan and Tianyu Zhu. Nick’s research focuses on the development and application of theoretical models to simulate biomolecular vibrational response, with an emphasis on chiral-selective vibrational sum frequency generation spectroscopy.

Outside of the lab, Nick enjoys playing tennis, cooking, and learning new languages.

Joined in 2025.

Rachel graduated from Bowdoin College with a B.A in Chemistry in 2023, where she completed an honors thesis in the lab of Dr. Kana Takematsu characterizing photoacids utilizing UV-Vis, steady-state fluorescence, and time-resolved emission spectroscopy. In the fall of 2023 she began work as a research technician and lab manager for Dr. John D. Gross at UCSF, characterizing the conformational landscapes of intrinsically disordered proteins involved in mRNA processing and decay. Now a Biophysical Chemistry PhD student at Yale, she studies proteins at the air-water interface.

Outside of lab, she enjoys painting, reading, and hiking.

Joined in 2026.

Bryan is an undergraduate student mentored by Nicholas Hatzis-Schoch under professors Elsa Yan and Tianyu Zhu. His research focuses on the application of molecular dynamics and electrostatic mapping to simulate chiral-selective vibrational sum frequency generation spectroscopy.

Outside of the lab, Bryan enjoys poker, photography, and tennis.