Lisa Eshun-Wilson ’14

Lisa Eshun-Wilson ’14 envisions a radically transformed culture of scientific research and is thinking creatively about what it means to create a truly inclusive workspace.

Eshun-Wilson is a structural biologist and postdoctoral researcher at the Scripps Research Institute. For several years, she has worked with a technique known as cryogenic electron microscopy — cryo-EM for short — to determine the structure of biologically important proteins.

Along with her collaborator, Alba Torrents de la Peña, Eshun-Wilson used cryo-EM to resolve the structure of the surface protein of the hepatitis C virus, which facilitates the virus’s entry into host cells. Their discovery is a huge first step toward developing a structure-based vaccine for the virus, which afflicts more than 58 million people worldwide.

Eshun-Wilson is looking to entrepreneurship as an avenue to blend her research talents with her desire to transform the culture of science research.

If Eshun-Wilson must take an unconventional route to pursue the research she loves, she looks forward to the journey. “I am excited to work out something that fits my needs and my strengths and my values.” Whether that path exists already or not doesn’t matter. “I’ll create a new path,” she says.