Christopher Long | Student Spotlight

Christopher Long

Ph.D. Candidate

Materials Science and Engineering

"While I was an undergraduate, I experienced firsthand the devastating impact of dementia as my grandmother suffered through it. This inspired me to study neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s in the hopes that we can come to understand the mechanisms behind them and ultimately cure them. 

Coming from my undergraduate studies, where I focused on traditional materials science research including fracture mechanics, fabricating composite materials, and characterizing metallic glasses, I elected for a radical departure into biomaterials. Currently, I use functionalized hydrogels as a platform for better understanding the mechanisms behind neurological disease, which I analyze using novel Raman microscopy techniques. 

At Stanford, I’ve been given the amazing opportunity to foster several collaborations, particularly with the Wyss-Coray lab. I was fortunate to receive a Stanford Bio-X fellowship in tandem with the NSF GRFP, which has provided me the means and opportunity to pursue interdisciplinary work and meet several potential collaborators. These experiences have allowed me to grow as a researcher, develop several new skillsets, and interact with many fantastic scientists and people. I’m very excited for our manuscript about Alzheimer’s risk genes in microglia that has recently been accepted for publication, which feels like a culmination of years of effort. 

I am very grateful to the members of my lab, who have made my time at Stanford an excellent one. From movie nights to snack competitions to holiday parties, all our events and silly experiences have been a blast, and I can’t wait to see where we all end up after our time here at Stanford."