People

Dr. David R. Jacobson
Assistant professor
Department of Chemistry, Clemson University

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David received his B.A. in physics and biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and completed his Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, under Prof. Omar Saleh. As a postdoc, he developed single-molecule methods for measuring membrane-protein energetics under Prof. Tom Perkins at JILA. At Clemson, his lab focuses on applying those single-molecule methods to studies of membrane proteins of biological and biomedical interest.

Abideen Ayangbemi
Chemistry Ph.D. student

Abideen studied biochemistry and molecular biology at Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria. Now in grad school, he chose to study chemistry to address questions he felt biochemistry would not be able to answer. As a Ph.D. student, he hopes to expand his horizon and build a career.

He is working on two projects:

• Making high-resolution unfolding measurements of beta-barrel membrane proteins.
• Developing general techniques for performing single-molecule force spectroscopy of membrane proteins in native lipid bilayer environments.

Christopher Hatchell
Chemistry Ph.D. student

Chris attended Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., where he earned bachelors degrees in both chemistry and biology. He is interested in the intersection of chemistry, biology, and physics.

He is working on two projects:

• Measuring the folding energetics of vasopressin receptor 2, a human G-protein coupled receptor.
• Developing widely applicable methods for tuning the mechanical properties of AFM cantilevers.

Tommy Courtney
Chemistry Ph.D. student

Tommy earned his bachelors degree in Chemistry with a concentration in Pure Chemistry at the University of California Riverside. There he developed a passion for not only the physical sciences, but biochemistry as well. Now at Clemson, he is using single-molecule methods to study the folding of the bacterial protein LacY, a model system for understanding how membrane proteins orient in the bilayer. He has also led the implementation of new coupling chemistry that has significantly improved the throughput of our experiments.

Alex Lybrand
Chemistry Ph.D. student

Alex earned his BS in Chemistry from Lander University and worked for several years as an industrial chemist before coming to Clemson. He is using single-molecule unfolding experiments to explore how the mechanical unfolding pathway of membrane proteins depends on various biological and experimental conditions.

Carrie Baumgardner
Medical Biophysics Ph.D. student

Carrie came to Clemson after finishing her undergraduate work at Wingate University in North Carolina. She joined the Jacobson Lab in summer 2025 and is working on instrument development and measurement-theory projects.

David Cho
Biochemistry B.S. student

David is using single-molecule force spectroscopy to study the sugar pucker of single-stranded RNA.

Ben Gaipa
Chemistry and Biochemistry B.S. student

Ben is developing assays to test the efficacy of single-molecule conjugation chemistry.