Catherine O'Neil
PhD Candidate in Physics
"Receiving this scholarship has allowed me to focus on my academic goals and personal growth without worrying about financial constraints."
Priscilla Navarrete
PhD Student in Biology
How do you believe receiving the New Mexico STEM Scholarship will influence your academic and professional goals?
Receiving the New Mexico STEM Scholarship will influence my academic and professional goals by alleviating the financial burden associated with graduate studies, allowing me to focus entirely on my academic and research pursuits while giving me peace of mind.
What motivated you to choose New Mexico State University for your studies?
My parents attended New Mexico State University and always talked about how much they loved it there. They have fond memories of when they attended and made it sound like it would be a great place to go to school. Additionally, I was very fortunate to have been offered very good scholarships that I couldn’t turn down like the Lottery, Crimson Scholar, and the Opportunity scholarship. I also did not want to move too far away from home as I wanted to stay close to my parents and sisters.
What inspired you to pursue your specific field of study, and what excites you most about it?
I was inspired to pursue cell and organismal biology after volunteering in a microbiology lab during my junior year and later taking developmental biology during my senior year. I had the opportunity to work with Physella acuta mito-haplotypes with different invasive abilities where a partner and I were able to determine if there was a difference in fecundity and survivability between the two. I looked forward to when we could count the egg masses and embryos.
However, it was taking Developmental Biology that inspired me to further explore cell and developmental biology. The course provided insights into the factors and cell rearrangements. Additionally, we discussed how minor modifications of developmental strategies give rise to new body plans and how errors in these processes give rise to birth defects. These were pathways that I had never heard of before or even knew they existed, so it was exciting to learn about them. This further sparked my interest in developmental biology.
