When Minnie Nguyen, a senior from Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, came to Wilkes, she thought a pharmacy major was the path to her future. After experimenting with plants, birds and bacteria, she discovered a love for lab work and a major in biology.
Before she changed her major, Nguyen served as a teaching assistant for Principles of Modern Biology and worked with Ken Klemow, emeritus professor of biology, to catalog plants in the Rosenthal Herbarium on campus so the samples could be added to the global database.
“I really like data and plants, and I really clicked with the bio department,” says Nguyen. “And I do love research.”
Nguyen put her passion for research to work for a variety of projects. She spent time out in the field with Jeff Stratford, professor and chair of biology, helping with an ongoing project studying the effects of fires on food webs. She collected plant samples with the research team. She also trapped birds, taking blood samples and tagging them, then releasing them back into the wild.
Following her green thumb, Nguyen lent a hand at one of the campus hemp farms under the supervision of Will Terzaghi, professor of biology. She literally got her hands dirty, potting, watering and moving hemp plants used in research and analysis for the cannabis chemistry programs.
Nguyen’s curiosity led her to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a summer microbiology internship with the Department of Environmental Protection. She worked in vector management, collecting and identifying samples of ticks and mosquitos. The team tested the samples to monitor levels of West Nile Virus and Lyme disease so DEP could warn residents of potential risks. “It was really fun,” Nguyen says. “I got to dabble in a lot of things.”
For her senior project, Nguyen continued on the microbiology path, studying calcium carbonate alongside her mentor, Matthew Jennings, assistant professor of biology. Calcium carbonate is a natural mineral used in consumer products including toothpaste, paint and paper to make them white. Bacillus subtilis, a bacteria found in caves, contains a gene that produces calcium carbonate without any external heat source. Nguyen worked to overexpress the gene to produce additional calcium carbonate in an environmentally friendly way.
While Nguyen originally thought she was just pursuing a grade for the senior capstone requirement, she discovered how invested she was in the lab results. “It’s so exciting to see when something works,” Nguyen says. But like any scientist, she had times when things didn’t go as planned. “Sometimes when things didn’t work, I thought I’d be more upset,” she says. “But that just fueled my passion. There’s always a reason why things don’t work, and I might as well figure it out.”
Nguyen credits Jennings with helping her develop the can-do attitude, making concepts easy to understand and providing a low-stress, low pressure environment. “He never talked down. He was always really uplifting,” Nguyen says of her mentor. “It felt like his only goal was to create an all-star research student. A scientist. He’s building a scientist. It lit a spark.”
Jennings starts building scientists in his lab by first suggesting they read research papers to gather some background. Then he’ll set up simple experiments for students to work on under his supervision. Once they gain a little more confidence, Jennings steps away, but remains available for questions and assistance. Finally, he’ll join in to review the results. “It teaches them a lot more about the profession than just hearing it in class,” says Jennings. “It provides a better idea of whether research is a career path they want to pursue.”
For Nguyen, her hands-on experiences at Wilkes confirm she’s headed in the right direction. After graduation in May, Nguyen has another internship lined up with the state Department of Environmental Protection. Then she plans to get a job in a lab to add some more skills to her toolkit before pursuing a master’s degree in microbiology.
Nguyen’s major experiment worked out perfectly. “Switching majors was a big gamble. It was scary at first, but so worth it in the end,” she says. “I love research. At Wilkes, you can start freshman year doing research to discover what you want. And that’s beautiful, in my opinion.”