Everyone at Whitman has a story to tell, how they got here and what happened once they did, and every story is different. This is Our Whitman, My Story.
Hi, I'm Austin Chiles. I'm from just north of Salt Lake City, Utah in a town called Bountiful. It's one of the suburbs surrounding Salt Lake. I'm a biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology major. I came to Whitman originally thinking that I would want to pursue varsity swimming. Before I came to Whitman, I had swam for nine years competitively swimming in meets both statewide and in different states across the country. And I thought that in college, I would want to pursue something similar. And so I started looking at schools that were swimming-focused, but also had the scientific aspect that I wanted in a school.
I stumbled upon Whitman and I loved the people when I visited. And yeah, just came here looking to swim.
When I was thinking about career choices, I was thinking that the best route for me would probably be the route of medicine, pursuing an MD without much deviation from that typical standard path, hopefully looking to do surgery or family physician or pediatrician, and just classic MD style route. When I got here, my planning took a little turn in a road that I wasn't expecting. I think I realized partway through my first year that I wasn't as big of a fan of swimming anymore. And once Whitman started presenting other opportunities to me, I realized that I didn't want my entire life to be just swimming in the pool.
I started thinking more about pursuing research and incorporating research into aspects of medicine and health sciences. I took organic chemistry my first-year spring semester and sophomore year fall semester. So, that was the first course where I really started to realize that I liked science a lot more than just the health professions aspect of it. I realized that the science component of organic chemistry was much more invigorating for my learning and for my enjoyment of the courses. And then that only grew when I started taking biochemistry and molecular biology.
It's funny because you talk to other college student and they all talk about how they dread organic chemistry. Like I remember talking to friends that went to state schools and how they just dreaded it and it wasn't fun. And I think I took it with two really awesome women professors and both of them were just really inspirational and fostered a really positive learning environment within the classroom. I think the organic chemistry, especially for me, it just kind of tripped one of those wires that was in my brain about just passion and interest and the professors having that passion and interest helped me to sort of realize that passion, but also foster it and be good at it to a point where I didn't feel like it was the hardest class.
It was actually my favorite class that I went to during those semesters. And then later in molecular biology, it was also the professor that I think shaped my like positive enjoyment in that course. I think or she really helped to shape fundamentals of the literature and of the textbook in a way that I really enjoyed and made me excited to come to class and learn more. And the professor who I actually work with now in research, she just brought the whole classroom to life and made it really inviting to participate in class and to learn more and to want to learn more.
I think for a while I thought that research was ... I didn't really know what it was. I think in high school, I always thought that research was just the continual development of new ideas and like making new medications like that type of research and developing new species and classifying them. I didn't really know what research was and then it was in these science classes that I started to read papers and journal articles. And it was in those papers that I realized what modern-day science looks like and started to really be able to see what kind of research aspects were interesting to me and what I could potentially pursue in my career.
I have a part-time job as the Beckman Scholar research assistant under the Beckman Foundation Scholar Award. It's an institutional award, the type that gets awarded to about 20 institutions, maybe less than that, nationwide each year and they have the ability to give scholarships out to four or five students over three years to pursue research under the mentorship of a professor and it's all fully funded by the foundation. A few years ago or a year before I applied, Whitman got the grant for that foundation or from that foundation. And so I applied that first year hoping to work within that organic chemistry lab.
And unfortunately, I didn't get it that year, but one of my best friends did. And then the following year I was in molecular biology with a different professor and it was also one that I really enjoyed. She just supported me a lot in a lot of my work. And in January of 2021, I received an email from her asking me if I wanted to apply to the position. I applied and got the award. My current role and I worked in last summer, this entire academic year and I get to work on this coming summer after graduation is doing synthetic cell biology research with her.
Yeah. Yeah. I know I say synthetic cell biology and it usually goes over most people's heads, but it went over mine at first too. Basically, what we do is I'm sure most people learned in high school biology classes about DNA and there's different biochemical approaches to create new strands of DNA. And so what we do is we take DNA from other organisms, like the project we're working on now is taking DNA from corn plants and swapping out certain pieces of the DNA and annealing it into a final strand that's collective of everything we want to put in or every aspect we want in the DNA sequence.
And then we put that into different bacterial and yeast systems to test their function within those sort of experimental systems. So we typically use baker's yeast and it's really cool. One of the experiments we do is using fluorescence to track sort of the proteins from the corn plants that come from that DNA that turn into proteins within the cells. And we then get to visualize the fluorescence under a microscope, which is super cool, because you shine a light on them and they emit this really bright green light. And so we just do different experiments with that and manipulating certain things so that we can create and test different aspects of the system of those corn DNA.
So I came into Whitman very individual and very competitive. In high school, I was very introverted and really stuck to myself, pursued academics and competed individually in competitive swimming. And I think when I got to Whitman, a lot of that changed. I noticed myself growing more extroverted each and every day and wanting to work with other people and loving working with other people. And I started to notice that my time spent in the pool was very isolating and very lonely for me. And I think that was one of the big factors of why I decided that I didn't want to do it anymore because I would sit and swim and just miss being around people.
And so I sort of went through that realization process of understanding that I wanted to be around people and work with people and not be as isolated in my life.
It's been challenging with the pandemic, but I do usually volunteer. There's a nursing home right next to campus that's just down the street that I usually go over and there's a group of residents there that I play poker with. And so it's technically volunteering, but I just see it as a fun way to really just engage with the community.
I'm Austin Chiles. And this has been Our Whitman, My Story. There are more episodes of Our Whitman, My Story available right now wherever you get your podcasts. For more information, go to whitman.edu/stories.
Music for this episode provided by the band Chastity Belt. The band formed in 2010 when its members were students at Whitman College and they're still going strong today.
(singing)
