Being accepted to the Whiting School of Engineering’s PhD program in chemical and biomolecular engineering was Chun-Chiao Yang’s first challenge. The second? Moving from San Francisco to Baltimore. So he hopped on his bicycle—a 2015 Giant Defy 3 road bike—to make what he called “The Grand Commute.”
Yang, who joins Hopkins after three years as a research scientist at a California biotech company, spent 69 days pedaling the roughly 4,040 miles (with detours) from California to Maryland. He traveled alone, but was shadowed part of the way by a rider from Canada and met another rider going the opposite direction in Illinois. On the way, Yang documented his trip on Instagram.
“It is the longest commute to school I have ever had so far,” he said.