J. Patrick Loria ‘ 97

Experience

Now an associate professor of chemistry and biophysics at Yale University, J. Patrick Loria credits his time at Notre Dame as a time of transformation.

It began with his first trip to campus. “Notre Dame was not my first choice for graduate school. When I came to the campus on a visit, I met Tom Nowak and Tony Serianni. I talked about science with Tom and the projects in his lab. I saw the type of environment there. That changed my mind on the spot to come to Notre Dame,” he said.

He began working on his doctoral thesis in conformational changes in yeast pyruvate kinase, which involved a considerable amount of protein chemistry and late night NMR experiments.

But in the process of starting his work, Loria learned something else that was to have a profound effect on him: a sense of independence. “I was in my early 20s, and I admit I was pretty naïve,” he explained. “Tom was very insightful and guided me and the other graduate students without us knowing it at the time. He fostered independence, so when I joined another lab that operated at a faster pace, it paid a lot of dividends. I felt I did not need a lot of supervision. I was not uncomfortable trying to tackle projects on my own. Tom should get a lot of credit for that.”

Loria felt he matured greatly during the years he spent at Notre Dame, as a student and as a teacher. “Serianni, Nowak, and (Paul) Huber were excellent and their teaching styles got me excited in areas of science distinct from my thesis,” he said. The campus still holds a lot of fond memories for Loria in one other aspect: “I met my wife at Notre Dame.”