Personal Statement  

Ashley Richards

NSFGRFP 2013

Getting to where I am today, personally and academically, could be characterized as journey of “figuring it out my way” and it was not always easy but it was uniquely me. Being the first in the family to attend college meant that there was no one to mentor about schools or majors, or warn me about the hardships of being in college. As a child, I was always interested in discovery. I remember being upset because there were no new worlds or lands for me to discover. However, in high school I realized there were and these worlds, full of mystery and wonder, were microscopic. I do not believe I would have come to this realization without my chemistry and biology teachers. Because of those two teachers, I decided in college to explore this world. One of the most amazing early realizations was that every one of us has a unique microbiome which houses millions of microenvironments for bacteria to thrive. I want to know more about how microorganisms are able specialize in the human host, as well as how they are able to interact with us to cause significant effects on our bodies. Before the end of my first year, I was hooked on science. Having always been a hands-on person, I knew I needed to get involved in a laboratory. Without any prior knowledge about undergraduate research opportunities, I started to email professors at the university about research topics that interested me. During the second semester of my sophomore year, I started working in the Actis laboratory at Miami University which specialized in Acinetobacter baumannii, an opportunistic human pathogen. My projects were designed to teach me general laboratory procedures and techniques. My first semester of exploration into this new world helped me build a foundation in the laboratory and affirmed that I wanted to work with bacteria. As I showed aptitude in the lab, I continued to learn new and more complex procedures in the following semesters. Among these procedures were tissue culture techniques and operating more advanced laboratory equipment such as the High-performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). During my time there, a study on ethanol-induced virulence in A. baumannii was being finished. However, a piece of the story was missing. Where was the used ethanol going? It was hypothesized that the conversion of ethanol to acetic acid, in excess, created indole-3-acetic-acid (IAA) as a stress-response induction. I did independent research and found a way to demonstrate that role of IAA. This led to the completion of the story and my coauthorship of the paper. During this time, I wrote two intramural grants to fund my independent undergraduate research. My project was based around discerning protein interactions with a novel blue-light sensing protein of A. baumannii. This research was well received and funded through two Undergraduate Research Awards (URA) as well as a Doctoral Undergraduate Opportunities Scholarship (DUOS). I presented the results of this work at the 18th Annual Midwest Microbial Pathogenesis conference. In addition, I have had the opportunity to present my research at a variety of conferences and symposia in the Ohio Valley region. These meetings provided valuable feedback on the

Personal Statement  

Ashley Richards

NSFGRFP 2013

research and promoted collaborative work. More importantly, these conferences reached diverse groups of individuals including adults without science backgrounds, college freshmen, and experts on bacterial pathogenesis. The ability to clearly communicate scientific work with everyone is important, and I have gained this needed experience from these conferences and symposia. I will continue to share my findings at professional conferences whenever possible. While at the University of Louisville, I will continue to participate in Research! Louisville where I have the opportunity to excite middle school and high school students about careers in STEM during a special day at the Kentucky Science Center. Upon completion of my research projects, I plan to publish my findings in high impact journals in order to contribute to the field. The complete story cannot be discovered in its entirety by one group, therefore resource sharing is vital to form better hypotheses, design better experiments, and discover the most we can about a topic. To demonstrate, my undergraduate research included collaboration with a protein structure biologist. This collaboration gave us new insight and predictions about our protein that we would not have otherwise formed, allowing us to perform more directed studies. For my current project and all future projects I plan to make the most of collaborations. Because no person can be an expert in all fields, such collaborations will allow for the most accurate interpretations of the data and better understanding of new discoveries. My strong involvement in undergraduate research led me to a position on the College Ambassadors board with the College of Arts and Science. This outreach program was designed to help attract incoming students to the world of research about which they may not have otherwise known. Through this organization and in collaboration with the Political Science Department, we formed a program, Posters on the Hill, in which we the undergraduates went to Washington, D.C. and Columbus, Ohio to discuss with congressmen the importance of continuing to fund science-based programs. While there, we presented our research to interested members and staff of Congress to demonstrate to them our passion, dedication and accomplishments in our research areas. I wish to create a similar collaborative program at the University of Louisville. It is important to convey to policy makers the impact of peer-reviewed research has on society and active researchers are the best fit for this. Undergraduate research helped to shape me as a student and made me realize what I want to do. I want to be able to give that experience back to other undergraduates and provide them with the positive experience of working in a laboratory. I determined early on that I wish to be able to mentor students, as a graduate student, including underrepresented groups. I believe having a mentor, who is familiar with the needs of a new researcher, will provide a positive experience for the students. I know from experience that not having someone to go to for help can be difficult, which is why I will not only mentor in the laboratory, but help as I can in

Personal Statement  

Ashley Richards

NSFGRFP 2013

providing the best information about possibilities for their future work in science. I will not only seek to mentor undergraduate students but also high school students. Many high school students do not fully understand or realize the options they have for continuing education after college. For myself, having no older influences that went through higher education, I was not aware of graduate school possibilities until my sophomore year of college. By allowing younger students to try research, they get the opportunity to decide if this is something they would like to pursue, thus making more informed career decisions in the future. I will do this by directly approaching high school science classes, so the students know that these options are available, and encourage fellow graduate students to form mentor relationships with students. In my senior year of research, I worked with new students, showing them basic laboratory procedures. Outside of the laboratory, I volunteered at a career development center helping immigrants develop their English speaking and writing skills. This allowed me to develop some of my mentoring skills, which is why I feel I will be an effective mentor. I also hope to both be a role model to females in STEM and increase female’s interest in STEM fields. Because I value the opportunity to advance my education; I resolved to get a Ph.D. in Microbiology. I decided to pursue a doctorate at the University of Louisville because I am highly interested in the work being done in Dr. Yousef Abu Kwaik’s laboratory. The focus of the laboratory is on the ways in which the bacterium Legionella pneumophila is able to manipulate the host to promote growth and replication through hijacking eukaryotic systems. This research applies to my personal interests of how microorganisms can interact with complex forms of life. I am very excited about the work I have begun here. The university has the resources and facilities necessary for my research, with a great history of collaboration between departments. Research has become a great passion for me. To continue to get the most out of it, I want to become an educator to share my knowledge. Funding from NSF will allow me to be more flexible and pursue mentoring and teaching without feeling the constraints of funding from my PI or finding other external funding. This would give me more time to design a government connection program at the university and provide meaningful mentoring. I am confident this research award would give me the opportunity to excel as researcher and educator. I do not always know what my future holds for me; however, I do know I wish to continue as an educator and researcher. There is still so much to learn about the world, and I want to foster a love and desire of learning in the next generation of students to uncover these mysteries. After I graduate, I will pursue a post-doctorate at a university with the ultimate goal of becoming a research professor. I will look for teaching opportunities in order to give me more experience so I can grow as both an educator and mentor. I did not always know that science was going to be my passion, but as I aged and gained more experience I realized that a career path in science education and research was right for me.