Fangwei Liu is a graduate student working on her Ph.D. in chemistry. Fresh off a bachelor’s degree from Hunan University in southern China, she arrived in the United States just over a year ago.
     “I applied to CUNY because I thought I would find a good research environment,” says Liu.
     She did. Liu, twenty-three, works in Assistant Professor of Chemistry Maria Contel’s laboratory, focusing on homogeneous catalytic oxidation with gold compounds since spring 2008. In the future, she will study homogeneous catalytic hydrogenations with gold compounds, as well as their applications as anti-cancer agents.
     She learned about Contel while still in China, and she contacted her before coming to New York to tell her she was interested in working with her. After taking a few classes at the CUNY Graduate Center, she chose to work under Contel and pursue the remainder of her career at Brooklyn College. “I feel this lab was perfect for me,” says Liu, who studied English for five years in middle school in China.
     She has little family here except for a few relatives in New Jersey, and says she lives the very frugal life of a student because her parents can’t afford to send her any money, though they are supportive. “They know that I needed to do this to become a scientist,” she says. She supports herself with the stipend she receives as a chemistry instructor.

     Lui, who is originally from Lanzhou, in Gansu province, says Contel is pretty supportive, too. “She provides me a very nice environment in which to work, and she has interesting ideas, which is very important to a Ph.D. student like me who is just starting,” says Liu. “And she has a lot of energy.”