Photo by Richard Howard

MeganNúñez致力于解决微观奥秘，在收集线索的同时求解显微镜，绘制化学，生物学和物理学，并提出让她更接近答案的问题。

幸运的是，化学教授Núñez是为科学侦探工作的精心装备。事实上，这是一个提出和回答第一次提起研究的问题的过程：她记得自己作为一个孩子如此充满了我不断地问她的父母“为什么？”的好奇心后来，作为史密斯学院的化学学生，她踩到了教室并进入了实验室，在那里她在她面前的看似无限数量的问题时立即破坏了。

And for Núñez, there is no better target for her questions than the cell. “I feel like the cell is kind of like Russian dolls,” she says. “Every time you solve one problem, you open it up and there’s another one on the inside, and then you open that up and there’s another one, and they just go on forever.”

她最近的谜团开始了一个广泛的问题：当细胞内的DNA受损时会发生什么？Núñez以及一群学生队伍已经花费了十多年的追捕，为一个微小的DNA病变，8-氧代，当加入额外的氧原子，其中四个DNA碱基中的一种。

“That one atom can then cause your DNA to be mispaired and lead to mutations, and so we’re interested in: What does it look like? How does it lead to the miscopying? How do the repair proteins find it when it’s so small?” Núñez explains.

After working her way through different techniques, Núñez finally found success with single molecule experiments, where she takes an individual piece of DNA, “yanks on it like a shoelace” with a pair of optical tweezers and looks for tiny changes in the way it behaves. Using this approach, she was able to measure differences between regular and damaged DNA, thus pinpointing the lesion. She publishedthese findings in March inNucleic Acids Research.

Núñez is also investigating another DNA lesion called spiroiminodihydantoin that forms when two oxygen molecules are added onto a guanine base. She is also studying bacterial adhesions—how bacteria stick to surfaces and other bacteria—using an atomic force microscope that pokes and prods cells, forcing them to reveal their physical properties.

“很难把一个不同的标签放在我所做的事情上，因为我在学科之间的界面工作，”núñez说。“但我真的很喜欢，因为通过从其他学科的一些技术中取出，你可以回答你无法回答的问题。”

Yet for Núñez, her favorite part of her job isn’t answering complex research questions. Rather, it is working with students—guiding them, collaborating with them, and supporting them as they grow into capable, self-assured scientists.

“我认为年轻女性通常不会像科学家那样看到自己。这不是他们长大的照片，所以看到这种观点的转变本身就是非常令人兴奋和精彩的，“núñez说。

She is committed to improving the educational experience for the entire Wellesley student body. As part of the College’s Inclusive Excellence Working Group, Núñez and other faculty members have been grappling with issues like how race and class affect students’ academic experience.

“We’ve had a lot of small programs that have been effective for groups of students, but we want to figure out how to make it universal, so that all of our students have this universally strong experience when they’re here, and they feel valued no matter what,” she says, adding that recently, conversations have centered on how to ensure every student is being equally heard during group projects.

While Núñez is confident that she and her colleagues will eventually achieve these goals, she also recognizes that with a continual influx of new students, slowing down isn’t an option. “You have to keep at it,” she says. “It’s like being at the seashore with your sandcastle—the water is just constantly eroding it, so you have to keep building and building and building.”