RNA molecules are the most conformationally and functionally diverse biopolymers on Earth, and they are probably the most ancient biomolecules. In our laboratory, we are exploring the structural complexity and plasticity of RNA architecture. We are striving to understand how specific three-dimensional RNA structures are formed, how their elaborate shapes are stabilized, and we are attempting to define the constituent building blocks for RNA tertiary structure. But just as RNA molecules must fold, they must also be disassembled during the dynamic process of cellular metabolism. Therefore, much of our work is devoted to this converse problem: how RNA structures are taken apart by cellular nanomachines such as RNA remodeling enzymes and helicases. These remarkable motor proteins are essential for all aspects of RNA metabolism, and yet we have only begun to understand the microscopic details of their behavior. Our laboratory has set out to understand how remodeling proteins manipulate RNA molecules and how they couple changes in protein structure to the rearrangement of RNA structure. Our investigations have carried us into the fields of virology, RNA processing and molecular evolution. But the lessons we are learning apply to every corner of every cell, wherever life is found, since RNA is always in there... always folding.