physics

Margaret S. Cheung

Margaret S. Cheung is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Margaret S. Cheung rather than just read about it. In short: Margaret Shun Cheung is a Taiwanese-American biological physicist whose research combines computational and theoretical approaches to understand protein folding and the dynamic behavior of protein complexes. A particular focus of her recent research has been calmodulin and its role in calcium signaling in the brain.

Key takeaways

Margaret S. Cheung belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Margaret S. Cheung to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Margaret S. Cheung from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Margaret Shun Cheung is a Taiwanese-American biological physicist whose research combines computational and theoretical approaches to understand protein folding and the dynamic behavior of protein complexes. A particular focus of her recent research has been calmodulin and its role in calcium signaling in the brain. She is a computational scientist in the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and an affiliate professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Washington.

Education and career Cheung majored in chemistry at National Taiwan University, graduating in 1994. She completed a Ph.D. in physics in 2003 at the University of California, San Diego, with a dissertation on protein folding supervised by José Onuchic. From 2003 to 2006 she was a Sloan postdoctoral fellow at the University of Maryland, College Park, working on protein–protein interaction with Devarajan (Dave) Thirumalai. She joined the University of Houston in 2006 as an assistant professor of physics, and was promoted to associate professor in 2012 and full professor in 2017. In 2018 she was named as the Moores Professor of Physics. She also began an affiliation with Rice University in 2012, as a senior scientist in the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, and since 2018 added an affiliation as an adjunct professor of bioengineering at Rice; both affiliations are ongoing. In 2020 she went on leave from the University of Houston to join the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and University of Washington, and her position at the University of Houston ended in 2022.

Recognition Chung was named as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2013, after a nomination from the APS Division of Biological Physics, "for her contributions to modeling and simulations necessary to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the folding, structure and function of a protein in a cellular environment". In 2019 she and her student at the University of Houston, Andrei G. Gasic, received the Robert S. Hyer Graduate Student and Mentor Award of the APS Texas Section, "for their work on development of a computational model to study the effects of molecular crowding, hydrodynamic pressure, and temperature on folding and functionality of phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK)".

References

External links Home page

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Margaret S. Cheung

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Margaret S. Cheung claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Margaret S. Cheung before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Margaret S. Cheung ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Margaret S. Cheung

In research: Margaret S. Cheung appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Margaret S. Cheung in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Margaret S. Cheung is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century Taiwanese physicists, American biophysicists, American women physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Margaret S. Cheung outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Margaret S. Cheung in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Margaret S. Cheung means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Margaret S. Cheung out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Margaret S. Cheung in simple terms?

Why does Margaret S. Cheung matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Margaret S. Cheung?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Margaret S. Cheung.