central Pennsylvania you kind of go to
the middle of nowhere and turn left and
it’s a farm country mostly dairy cattle
there were 82 kids in my high school
graduating class and it was not because
a lot of us failed when we got our first
walmart in town that was big news for us
and that was where I spend my childhood
except for one year the one year that I
was 14 we moved from the small town in
Pennsylvania to an equally small town
this one different because it was in
Massachusetts and for my family that
move was mostly a disaster the new
situation didn’t work out spent 14
months a high family drama dealing with
moving they’re moving back buying a
house selling a house you know in
retrospect my parents really could have
done without the whole process but for
me the one cool thing that came out of
this a whole disaster process was that I
had a fantastic biology course that year
so it’s my freshman year of high school
I had this really enthusiastic and
inspiring teacher she talked about
intracellular proteins like they were
rock stars and she was a woman which was
not necessarily usual for a high school
small town science teacher at that time
so that year living in that environment
where i had that course i was totally
psyched up about and that teacher who
was really inspiring and I was living
however briefly near Boston which is
where the headquarters of all the big
biotechnology firms were at the time I
came up with the plan so the plan was
going to be my course for the entire
rest of my career I was going to go to
college major in biology I was going to
go to graduate school get a PhD and then
I was going to go work for one of these
cool biotech firms where you can cure a
disease and get rich doing it so looking
back I’d say I know my new myself at
that point well enough to know that I
wanted to be involved in healthcare and
I wanted to use my personal skills and
aptitudes to help people I just also had
the teenage thing going on where i was
going to be rich and famous to it
probably know some people like that so
for the next 14 years I’ve
all of the plan I did go to college and
major in biology I did go to graduate
school and get the PhD I met and married
my husband while I was at it so
everything was perfect except that it
wasn’t because the further along I got
on the plan the more time I spent in the
research lab doing science and the more
I started to feel like I kind of wanted
to be doing something else and that was
a really strange thing for me to be
thinking at that point because the plan
had been to do research and I was doing
research so what was the problem I tried
switching labs I tried spend it’s more
time paying attention to my feelings and
what I found was that no matter where I
was working my favorite parts of
research were not designing the
experiments and getting the results back
which is what scientists are supposed to
be totally psyched up about my favorite
parts were teaching the younger students
how to do their experiments and then
presenting our result of conferences so
across my mind if what I like most is
the teaching and the describing you know
maybe what I really want to be doing is
teaching not research and that was a
pretty complicated thing for me to be
thinking right then because scientists
get kind of an attitude about people who
leave research you know to get from the
point where you’re a high schooler who
loves a science to the point where
you’re a junior investigator running
your first research lab it’s about 15
years worth of work and not everybody
makes it the whole way you know the
hours are long the pay isn’t great and
to get a good professor job in today’s
job market your work can’t be just good
enough it’s got to be amazing so there
are a lot of people who leave science to
do something that has a better work-life
balance to it or the pays more they kind
of get looked at of sellouts and there
are a lot of people who leave because
they just got tired of it couldn’t take
it anymore never got that great paper
that got him a job and they kind of get
looked at its washouts so here I was 14
years in on the plan looking at washing
out research and I was feeling really
insecure about that so I kind of tended
definitely mentioned the idea you know
first my husband and then to come of our
friends and family and they all gave me
this totally deadpan like if you want to
teach then you should teach because to
them that was a no brainer but I really
needed to hear that at that time in my
life because I had gotten to the point
where I was dragging myself to work
doing a job that wasn’t really doing it
for him
anymore and I’m kinda knew I needed to
make a change but to find the courage to
actually do it took their support their
support immunized me against my doubts
and so I did go ahead and make the big
jump and it’s been fantastic what I love
about teaching first is the students
Millennials are awesome do not let
anybody tell you otherwise second is I’m
still involved in all of my favorite
parts of science you know the
discoveries the Wonder the germs so if
you look under a microscope your human
cells are going to be big so these three
guys here with the green outsides and
the blue nuclei are your human cells
they’re good sized much smaller than
them are bacteria and then if you wanted
to see viruses you would have to even
zoom in again because viruses are
another order of magnitude or more
smaller than bacteria so what I want you
to notice about these germs first off is
they’re small they are everywhere germs
are enough they are on us they’re on
every surface you touch from cell phones
to doorknobs and they are devious little
things they can attach to ourselves they
can live inside our bodies they can
strip our nutrients out of us and of
course if too many of them grow to
successfully inside of you they can kill
you so hand in hand with microbiology
comes the science of immunology which is
learning how our bodies prevent that
microbial overload from happening
immunology has kind of two main branches
to it the first one is innate immunity
which is the defense’s that your body
runs 24 7 to protect you from germs of
all kind and innate immunity includes
some things you wouldn’t necessarily
think of if somebody says the phrase
immune system like for example your skin
your clean intact skin is a fantastic
barrier against germs of every kind
which is why you put a sterile bandage
on a cut when you get one because broken
skin is much more susceptible to
infection it’s not until germs get past
that outer layer of innate structural
defenses that you start needing all
those white blood cells that people
usually think about those germ-killing
white blood cells here they’re in orange
are mostly members of the other grouping
which is adaptive immunity so unlike
innate immunity which ones 20
47 for your whole life adaptive immunity
is something your body learns to do by
experience every time you get an
infection you raise a couple of families
of white blood cells that learn to
protect you specifically from that
infection they clear it out and
importantly they remember it so it later
on if the same germ tries to double back
and in fact you again it’ll be
recognized much more quickly and
eliminated much more quickly so what
does all this have to do with you for
starters based on my experience what I
would really like to tell you to do is
do dream big make the big plan imagine
yourself ten 15 20 years out really
happy really fulfilled with where you
are professionally then break it down
break it into simple achievable steps
that you can write out on a list and
that you can check off as you go along
anybody can daydream about being
anything but when you break it down into
a plan you’ve made it into a long-term
plan not a daydream anymore a long-term
plan is real having that checklist in
front of you that you know you’re going
down and you can look at and hold is
your innate immunity it’s the thick skin
that you need to protect you when people
doubt your dream one of the simplest and
most powerful things that you can do
when you go to make up your checklist is
to take meetings with a couple of people
who’ve achieved something similar to
what you want and ask them how they got
where they are most adults are totally
happy to take a meeting with a student
and talk about their career path most of
us are flattered to be asked if you’re
not at the point yet where you feel like
you’re quite ready to talk to a person
check out the jobs and careers section
of your local library or your school
guidance office next and importantly I
wish for you that you would remember
what I almost forgot that as you go
along your plan check-in off the steps
you own the plan the plan does not own
you by the time that you’ve checked off
a few of those steps you are going to
know yourself and your field of endeavor
better than you did when you first made
up the list so the final goal may drift
a bit and that’s okay the real final
goal is for you to be happy and
fulfilled not for you to have job X if X
changes into y that’s alright because as
you went down your list checking off
each of those steps
each of those completed experiences with
something that you accomplished you own
it belongs to you and it’s part of you
that’s your adaptive immunity the
experience that will protect you when
the doubts are coming from inside of
yourself so please take what I learned
plot your course make your goal live
your dream [Applause]