Thomas Cross received an Honorable Mention for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. TJ is a transfer student and a graduating senior in Chemistry. His work focuses on predicting and modeling mutations to the SARS-CoV-2 main protease, resulting in a first author paper published in Biochemistry. He recently received the Student Award from the American Institute of Chemists for his work as an undergraduate researcher and has presented his findings at multiple conferences. Fascinated by a chemical biology course taught by Professor Rachel Martin, TJ joined her lab two days after the campus closure in 2020 and began research on SARS-CoV-2, discovering a passion for computational chemistry. This Fall, he will pursue a PhD in Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles.