MolVisWeb
A web-based, accessible, 3D molecular visualization software platform to increase access to STEM education.
In my senior year, I completed an undergraduate thesis in the Computer Science and Chemistry departments. I was advised by Dr. Mala Radhakrishnan in the Chemistry Department and Dr. Scott Anderson in the Computer Science Department, with additional mentorship from members of my thesis committee in human-computer interaction and software development.
To access a copy of my senior thesis, click on the following PDF: Building and Assessing a Web-based, Accessible, Three-Dimensional Modeling Tool to allow High School Students to Explore Molecular Structure, Intermolecular Interactions, and Molecular Dynamics Simulations.
Chemical bonding is a critical part of learning introductory chemistry, but is often a difficult concept for students to grasp. The EMMAs (Exploring Molecular Modeling Activities) are a series of educational activities designed by Kotsalidis et al. to teach high school chemistry students about noncovalent bonding through case studies and exploratory exercises using the 3D molecular visualization tool VMD (Visual Molecular Dynamics). However, VMS isn’t available on Chromebookes, the most commonly-used PCs by high school students, and it also requires installation. Thus, the motivation behind my thesis is to build and evaluate a web-based molecular visualization interface that implements the EMMAs, which will make these activities accessible to more students.
Check out the gihub repository to see my code, and MolVisWeb itself to experiment with the platform and hopefully learn something new about drug-protein interactions. MolVisWeb was mainly coded in Javascript using the package Three.js to render 3D visuals.
Lastly, some fun bloopers from my many hours of late-night coding and debugging.
