Parisa Hosseinzadeh is a computational biochemist invested in developing new tools to enhance human life, especially through structure-guided rational protein/peptide design and the use of large data.

As an undergraduate student, Parisa was trained as a molecular biologist. Her interest in proteins led to her graduate research on the rational design of metalloproteins in the lab of Dr. Yi Lu at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Parisa’s research on altering second shell interactions to tune the activity of proteins provides a general guideline for tuning the redox potential of metal centers. As a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of David Baker at the Institute for Protein Design, she helped develop new computational tools to design cyclic peptides and used these peptides as specific inhibitors to target enzymes/proteins.

Parisa has been an active voice for increasing diversity and inclusion in STEM, and is invested in empowering women scientists and international students. In her free time, she enjoys reading books, playing sports, cooking food (often poorly), painting, and writing poems.