My second year of college was a whirlwind, but here are a few of the things that stood out when I reflect back:

Autumn 2021

My first in-person quarter! I took CHEM 335 (Honors Organic Chemistry), BIOL 200 (Introductory Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology), and HONORS 394A (Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity).

artifact: an ode to Ode

This is the board after one of my study groups met in Odegaard Library ("Ode"). As this was my first in-person quarter (!), I really can't express how wonderful it was to be able to study with my friends in person (yay for not suffering alone!). I'm so grateful for my wonderful peers in the honors chemistry program, and I'm SO excited for more quarters in person!!

artifact: fiction for the win

I took my first HONORS-prefix course this quarter: HONORS 394A, Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity. I enjoyed getting to think about gender, class, and history in this class. I especially liked getting to think about these issues through niche lens; for example, I loved learning about what ancient medical (i.e. the Hippocratic corpus) and philosophical (i.e. Platonic, Epicurean, Pythagorean, etc.) ideas say about women in the era. 

After so many STEM classes, I appreciated that this class gave me space to do a creative final project. I really enjoyed writing a fictional short story about Axiothea of Phlius, a woman philosopher who studied at Plato's Academy in male dress after being inspired by Plato's Republic. It took writing that story to remind me that creativity is something that gives me balance and joy. While I do spend a lot of time reading, I don't write creatively much--and I would like to change that!

Winter 2022

The first half of this quarter was online due to the Omicron variant, but most of my classes were in person most of the quarter. I took the organic chemistry lecture (CHEM 239) and lab (CHEM 242), the last introductory biology class in the series (BIOL 220), and a timely Honors class on health inequities during Covid-19 (HONORS 231).

artifact: 10 weeks can go by that fast?

This quarter was incredibly busy (I may have underestimated how much time 17 credits + research ends up taking), but the beautiful wintery Seattle sunsets (above) pulled me through. A highlight was presenting my bat research at my first in-person scientific conference down in Phoenix, AZ.

I also ended up really loving my organic chemistry labs--I didn't realize how much I was missing in my chemistry classes until now! I hadn't had a chance to try real wet lab work until this quarter and I ended up loving it. My fume hood partner was awesome (left) and made the late night labs an enjoyable experience--as I'm learning more and more, it's often my amazing peers that make these challenging STEM classes so fun. My favorite lab this quarter was a synthesis of azo dyes--I made an orange dye, my favorite color. Organic chemistry this quarter, especially the synthesis lab work, confirmed for me that I want to major in Biochemistry (so nice to finally have that figured out!).

​The organic lab was probably the academic highlight of my quarter, but I also enjoyed my Honors class on health inequities during Covid-19. I learned so much in that class, and one of the most eye-opening topics was on the bias inherent in biomedical technologies--an issue that caught my interest because I'm currently considering a career in biomedical research. I based my final project on this issue, which you can read more about at the link below.

honors 231 final project

Spring 2022

This quarter I took my last quarter of organic chemistry lecture and lab (CHEM 239/242) and took Foundations in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (BIOL 355). I filled up the rest of my credits with undergraduate research (BIOL 499), which you can read more about in the research tab.

​artifact: halfway done?!

Feels really weird to say, but I'm halfway done with my time at UW. At least I'm finally in a major! This quarter I was accepted to the Biochemistry and Biology majors, so I'm currently planning a double major. I'm super excited to be in a program and to start planning out all the cool classes I get to take in the next two years.
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This was the first quarter that I took all STEM/research classes, so I don't have any cool humanities artifacts, but I am really proud of the work that I presented at this year's Stanford Research Conference and Undergraduate Research Symposium (right) on my bat project and zebrafish project. Alongside all of the work I've been doing on my squirrel project, research has definitely been keeping me busy. A big challenge this quarter was balancing my active data collection/analysis commitments on top of starting to draft a manuscript for publication. I definitely underestimated the difficulty of the scientific writing process, but I'm enjoying the challenge so far and looking forward to having a final product ready soon!

At the in-person (!) UW Undergraduate Research Symposium, from left to right: me, fellow undergraduate researchers Hannah, Annika, and Tate, and my mentor Chris Law (recipient of the 2022 Outstanding Mentor Award!!).

Summer 2022

This summer I participated in the Institute for Protein Design's Undergraduate Research Fellowship and got a sense for what it's like to do wet and dry lab research full time...turns out I love it :-)

​artifact: a future in science!

You can read more about my project in the research tab, but this summer I had the incredible opportunity to do research full time at the University of Washington's Institute for Protein Design (IPD) alongside my amazing mentor Chloe Adams in the King Lab. Besides the science, one of the highlights of the summer was getting to know the other undergraduate interns, who came to Seattle for this program from all over the country/world. We explored Seattle and the PNW a lot, even going backpacking on the Olympic Peninsula as is pictured in the middle above. This summer also confirmed for me that I definitely want to attend graduate school in the biosciences, and possibly work in the biotechnology sector. I found that I really enjoyed the problem-solving and varied days that accompany both wet and dry lab work in biochemistry research. The IPD was also an incredibly exciting, cutting-edge environment to work in and I'm beyond excited to keep researching there during the school year.

on to year 3!