By Molly Gasperini
I was going to be a novelist when I grew up, but then my 10th grade high school biology teacher, Ms. Stoops, taught me about the human immune system. White blood cells spoke to me in a way that other classes didn’t. A multitude of mentors — including the Levinsons — fostered this initial inspiration to get me to where I am now.
Before Ms. Stoops’ class, I always envisioned myself in the humanities. My parents and sister work in elementary schools, and as a high schooler, my model of what it looked like to be a scientist was based on the “intense kids” who did computer camp, memorized the periodic table for fun, had parents with Ph.D.s, and were mostly male. After Ms. Stoops’ class, I cautiously thought about pursuing a career in the sciences. Even though I had straight As and loved my science classes, I felt I didn’t fit the bill.
Two years after that first high school biology class, I started at the University of Washington. I signed up to major in biology, and still feared I would fail Biology 101. Though I eventually got a 4.0 in the course, I felt like an outsider and still wasn’t sure I had what it takes to make it in the sciences at the UW.
So instead of immediately signing up for an undergraduate research position like some of my friends, I got a job as a secretary on campus. However, after one incorrectly addressed email too many, the kind office staff and I quickly realized I was a pretty lousy secretary. They recognized my desire to study for my science classes instead of file papers and suggested I work in a lab. I took their advice, and to this day am deeply grateful to them for firing me.
Professor Mary-Claire King generously let me join her human genetics lab and immediately became another person who can take credit for my pursuit of science. She exposed me to a community that I loved fervently but had no idea existed before joining her group. I remember excitedly diluting primers for the first time and the graduate student who was training me said, “If you love that so much, you’re meant to be in science!” Instead of office work, I could fill my time interpreting my Sanger sequencing results. I spent hours in lab meetings, listening to others’ results or presenting my own data.
No one had ever before told me I could be a scientist. Someday, I could be paid to attend seminars, design my own experiments, and pursue projects that were helping move society and medicine forward by small steps. I was hooked.
After a year shadowing a graduate student, Mary-Claire helped set me up with my own project, following up on a mutation found in a patient with schizophrenia. To support this, I applied for the Levinson Emerging Scholars Award. Again, I was convinced I wouldn’t get it, just as I had been sure I would fail introductory biology. I tried anyway because the application required me to write a grant proposal, something I knew was critical to master. It didn’t occur to me that I could actually get the award until the notification email popped up in my inbox. Receiving the Levinson scholarship was one of the first times I allowed myself to think, “Hey, maybe I could actually be good at this!” I realized I wasn’t just barely making the cut, I was actually excelling. The experience of writing my Levinson proposal and then carrying it out my senior year solidified my commitment to a career in science.
The Levinson Emerging Scholar Award first spurred me to think of myself as a scientific scholar. This was the first investment in me as an individual researcher. Not only did it allow me to pursue crucial early research experience free of financial burden, but it also gave me the confidence to see myself as someone whose time could be spent in the pursuit of learning and scientific advancement. This confidence is often lacking in young female scientists, and the Levinson was crucial for me to overcome my self-doubt.
The award helped me have the confidence to apply to jobs at Harvard Medical School after graduating. I worked as a research assistant for two years in Lou Kunkel’s lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, helping develop new high-throughput screening techniques for muscular dystrophy and other orphan diseases. Life in Boston exposed me to a science community beyond UW, and though I almost stayed at Harvard, I returned to UW for graduate school to be near my family and join the phenomenal, tight-knit UW Genome Sciences community.
I now train with Professor Jay Shendure and work on developing techniques that use genome engineering to enable phenotyping of thousands of mutations in a single experiment. Using these techniques allows results to be analyzed in a matter of weeks. By contrast, the techniques I used as an undergrad would take years to follow up on one mutation.
My grant writing skills honed by the Levinson application have enabled me to apply for and be awarded the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship. At the end of my second year of graduate school, my abstract was chosen from more than 3,000 submitted for one of 12 plenary presentations at the American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting (ASHG). In October, I presented to the entire body of 8,000 attendees at the conference. In addition, I competed with 490 other trainees for and was awarded the ASHG/Charles J. Epstein Trainee Award for Excellence in Human Genetics Research.
As I enter my third year of graduate school, I am now part of a community of science superstars and finally feel as if I belong. Without the Levinson scholarship and my undergraduate research experience, I wouldn’t have the opportunity or confidence to pursue a career in science. My initial high school inspiration has been fostered by a multitude of mentors to get me to where I am now. From Ms. Stoops, to my professors, to the Levinsons, I am extremely grateful for the life given to me by countless mentors and investors. Thank you.