Vladislav (Vlad) Belyy got his first taste of experimental research in as an undergraduate student in the laboratory of Dr. Sergei Sukharev at the University of Maryland. There, he studied inactivation and attenuation mechanisms of bacterial mechanosensitive channels and developed the deep fascination with single-molecule studies that persisted throughout his scientific career. After receiving his B.S. from the University of Maryland, Vlad moved across the country to get a Ph.D. in Biophysics from UC Berkeley. There, he joined the lab of Dr. Ahmet Yildiz and began working on the microtubule-associated molecular motor dynein, eventually discovering how dynein’s two “legs” work together to pull against the piconewton-scale forces that dynein encounters in the cell. As a Damon Runyon post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Peter Walter’s lab at UCSF, Vlad switched topics once more to reveal exciting new aspects of endoplasmic reticulum stress sensor activation. Vlad is beginning his independent research career as an Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University in August 2022.