Alumni Spotlight: Josh Feng

Dr. Joshua Feng, BA in Philosophy Class of ‘14

Josh earned both a BA in Philosophy and a BS in Biochemistry—and both with departmental honors, no less—while also graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude. After Cal State Long Beach, he continued on into graduate studies at the University of Southern California, where he earned his Ph.D in Chemistry in 2022. During this time, he performed research on covalent drug discovery, investing most of his efforts in designing therapeutics for BRAF-positive melanoma and anti-virals against SARS-CoV-2. His work has been published in journals such as Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Nature Chemical Biology, and mBio. Throughout his academic career, Josh has been heavily invested in education and culminated his stay at USC as an Anton B. Burg teaching fellow for organic chemistry lecture and laboratory. He has since returned to Cal State Long Beach as a lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, where he teaches pre-general, general, organic, and biological chemistry. In his free time, he works on continually growing and learning but has recently enjoyed suffering through marathons and getting humbled while playing chess.