Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering graduate student Rob Oda has been awarded the highly competitive Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship, which he will use to study Raman spectroscopy in Japan for a year. Oda is a research assistant at the Hawai‘i Center for AIDS, with research interests in HIV and its association with neurocognitive disorders. He has worked on projects incorporating Raman spectroscopy, a technique to identify molecules by their structural “fingerprint,” with Associate Professor Jon-Paul Bingham.
Established to commemorate the 1959 wedding of then Crown Prince Akihito and Crown Princess Michiko, the Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship is awarded to graduate students of Japan or the United States who are pursuing a subject area that will contribute to better understanding between two nations.