His research focuses on designing chemical biology methods to modulate and monitor protein folding in metazoan cells, as well as applying those methods in protein misfolding-related disease model systems to reveal new fundamental aspects of cellular proteostasis and to potentially identify new therapeutic strategies. Prior to beginning his independent position at MIT, Prof. Shoulders was an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Jeffery Kelly’s research group at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA. He conducted his Ph.D. research in organic chemistry with Prof. Ronald Raines at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he was a USA Department of Homeland Security Graduate Fellow. Prof. Shoulders earned his B.S. in chemistry Summa cum Laude from Virginia Tech in 2004.