Personal Statement
They say that when a young grey wolf—eager and uncertain upon its feet—sinks its incisors into
the flesh of a North American elk for the first time, the young sapling stretches its grateful limbs skyward
to embrace the flocks of rejoicing birds which come to nest among its branches. The beavers fashion
sturdy dams of the grateful trees, where the otter families come to play. The bears abound and the
coyotes tremble and the small rodents multiply in number. Even the Yellowstone River pays its dues to
the howls of the canine predators, becoming more certain and fixed in its course.
Similarly, I believe that when a wide-eyed young explorer firmly plants the end of her knotted
walking stick—dirty red bandana tied around the top—at the point where a small woodland creek
diverges into two, an underrated high school honors biology teacher drops a beautifully-written book
entitled “The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher” by Lewis Thomas into the hands of a timid
freshman student with a fire for knowledge in her soul. The seal to an acceptance letter for the College of
Science clumsily slips through the shaking hands of a girl who dared to dream, and a few short months
later, a shiny new backpack slips through those same fingers onto a beat-up old blue twin extra-long
mattress at the University of Notre Dame. Tears of joy well up in the eyes of an overly-eager young
researcher there, as the fluorescent red and blue glow of a perfectly executed 3D cell culture experiment
announces that the fight with cancer is one small step closer to being won, and a sunbathing Northern
Leopard Frog turns to assess the risk of the distinctive squish of approaching latex waders on the feet of a
field biologist. And at last, a transformed and assured Notre Dame senior sits down to apply to graduate
school.
So you see, the complexly interconnected nature of this beautifully dynamic planet generates
consequences seemingly beyond the scope of everyday reason. This intriguing series of underlying cause
and effect is what drove a young explorer in a red bandana, an overly-eager undergraduate researcher, a
transformed Notre Dame senior to decide that a PhD in the natural sciences of this world was her surest
path to fulfilment. When I began my undergraduate education at the University of Notre Dame, my eager
and uncertain heart wanted to know something about everything. From Plato to Pasteur, the Big Bang to
natural selection, I was primarily thirsty for knowledge above all else. I knew upon entering college that
a life in scientific research was my ultimate career intent, but I was uncertain as to which sector of
biology I was ready to devote my life over all the others. I therefore began a two-year period in which I
explored and experienced every type of research I could—from introductory biology lab to genetics and
genomics, microbiology to cancer research to environmental science.
The summer following my freshman year at Notre Dame, I maintained a job as a lab technician at
Alliance Analytical Laboratory of Michigan, a microbiology and chemical analysis testing laboratory for
the water, food, beverage, cosmetics, automotive and furniture industries. There, I experienced first-hand
what it means to work both in industry and in a true laboratory setting. I primarily spent my time in the
microbiology department, where I learned a significant amount about the life cycles, growth, and
prevention of common microorganisms including Escherichia coli, Salmonella senftenberg, Listeria
monocytogenes, Lactobacillus, and various yeast and mold species. I became intimately familiar with
basic lab techniques and practices—from preparing samples to making and pouring agar plates to logging
vast amounts of data to the critical importance of maintaining a precise and sanitized laboratory
environment. By the end of the summer, I had discovered that the intricacies and specific lifecycles of
microbiology were beyond fascinating to me, and certainly held potential as a path to which I could see
myself dedicating my life, while additionally acknowledging that industry was probably not the
environment in which I wished to continue as a career. With this revelation, I began to seriously
investigate the possibility of earning a PhD over a MS, and entering the field of academia.
