Baton Rouge native named Rhodes Scholar

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In Spring 2018, Runnels, a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, will graduate with a bachelor's degree in biochemistry after only three years at Georgia Tech. And next fall, he will begin postgraduate study at the University of Oxford — the sixth student in Tech history to be named a Rhodes Scholar.

Runnels works in the lab of Loren Williams, professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Under the guidance of Williams, graduate student Nicholas Kovacs, lab manager Jessica Bowman, and others in the lab, he is studying the origins of protein folding.

“Calvin is considered by my lab members and by me to be among the brightest and most promising undergraduate students in our program,” Williams stated in his Rhodes Scholar recommendation letter for Runnels. “He ranks in my view alongside a young John Rinn. John began his research career in my laboratory and is now a highly successful member of the University of Colorado faculty. Calvin, like John, is bound to do great things.”

Runnels’ research investigates the primitive protein and RNA folding structures fossilized in the ribosome, which may provide insight into the origins of life.

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