LEARN BY DOING
- Visiting Undergraduate, Department of Orofacial Sciences, UCSF
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
- Varsity Baseball
- Racial Injustice Committee, Student-Athlete Advisory Committee
- “The most valuable thing I learned at Washington College was adaptability, personally and career-wise. I started freshman year with baseball as an absolute priority, and then things shifted and people helped to foster that. Then with COVID-19, there were two years where everything was completely thrown off and learning to keep moving and keep your goals in mind was something I experienced at Washington College and can continue through the rest of my life.”
A Science Major’s Path to Discovery
Trevor Frederick '22
PhD Candidate, Rutgers University • Hoboken, New JerseyLEARN BY DOING
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
- Varsity Baseball
- Racial Injustice Committee, Student-Athlete Advisory Committee
- “The most valuable thing I learned at Washington College was adaptability, personally and career-wise. I started freshman year with baseball as an absolute priority, and then things shifted and people helped to foster that. Then with COVID-19, there were two years where everything was completely thrown off and learning to keep moving and keep your goals in mind was something I experienced at Washington College and can continue through the rest of my life.”
“I always had an interest in sciences in general,” said Frederick. “But the evolution
of where I am now [in cancer research] happened at Washington College.”
As a member of the Washington College baseball team, Frederick always thought of himself as an athlete first. His advisor Mindy Reynolds, Professor of Biology and Chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, as well as other professors in the department however, saw a scientific mind at work in Frederick.
“They knew I had an interest in science and knew it wasn't my absolute priority in the beginning,” said Frederick. “And they still were able to foster the interest in me. When I finally decided to pursue a PhD, they absolutely believed in me and gave me guidance in whatever I asked. They were there for me.”
His professors’ guidance and counsel from the career center led to an eight-week internship in a cancer research lab at University of California, San Francisco in the research lab of Washington College alumna Terumi Kohwi-Shigematsu the summer before Frederick’s junior year.
“I don't think I'd be where I am without that sort of internship, help from the career center and that guidance,” said Frederick. “I also had really good mentors in the faculty and being a small school and an intimate setting allowed for more individual learning and teaching.”
Now, as a PhD candidate in Sergei Kotenko’s lab at Rutgers University, Frederick is focused on cancer and virology research. His interest lies in cancer therapeutics, but Frederick is open to other opportunities as the next three years of his program unfold.
“In cancer research, it's interesting to be on the research side because growing up, most people know someone who had cancer and has gone through battles with cancer,” said Frederick. “So to be at the beginning of the therapeutics [being] developed gives me a different perspective of what goes into the things that patients are getting and how difficult it is to get these things actually to patients. It’s amazing the progress we've made.”
— Melanie Warner Spencer