Tate YawitzBIOSC Senior In summer 2019, a few months before I began my junior year at Pitt (and about 10 years before the pandemic began), I lived in San Francisco and worked at the California Academy of Sciences to study the evolutionary arms race between bark scorpions and grasshopper mice. Bark scorpions have evolved venom so toxic that it has killed people, yet they’re preferentially hunted by grasshopper mice, which have evolved resistance to the scorpions’ venom. Admittedly, one of the first questions that I get when I tell people I did scorpion venom research is, “How did you get into that?”. It’s a fair question for sure, and one that doesn’t have a quick answer. When I was a kid, I’d spend my summers outside collecting bugs. I’ve always loved spiders and other arachnids in particular and would tell my parents that I was going to be an entomologist when I grew up. When I got to college and eventually started working in Dr. Kevin Kohl’s lab, I realized that I loved research, and knew that I wanted to find some kind of entomology or arachnology research opportunity. After casually searching for research internships, I found the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) website. These are fully funded opportunities where undergraduate students from the US can apply for research internships all over the country. The NSF pays for your relocation, research, housing, and your stipend throughout the summer. Just about any kind of research that you can dream of is available through an REU in pretty much any field of STEM. The NIH also has a similar set of opportunities that are more focused on biomedical sciences. The problem with these programs, however, is that they’re incredibly competitive. There are usually only around 10 spots per program, but each program gets hundreds of applicants each year. I ended up applying for 11 programs, but there was one that I wanted far more than the others. At the California Academy of Sciences, a world-famous natural history museum and research institution in San Francisco, I applied to work with the Curator of Arachnology, Dr. Lauren Esposito. Lauren is a scorpion biologist and the founder of a queer visibility campaign called 500 Queer Scientists. The campaign serves as a centralized space for queer scientists to share who they are and what they do. As a young queer scientist myself, I was overwhelmed when I first found the website. I grew up in a small, conservative town, where coming out was not a safe option. I came out to a few of my closest friends just before college started, but overall, Pitt was the place where I came to terms with my queer identity. My research advisor here at Pitt, Dr. Kevin Kohl, is also a member of the LGBTQ+ community. As an Assistant Professor, he has always been open and transparent about his identity, which has inspired me since the day I met him. Dr. Kohl was the first adult queer person who I had ever come to know, so I immediately wanted to come out to him and learn about his experiences as a queer man, and particularly, as a queer man in biology. Still though, because of where I was at in my own coming out process, I was afraid and didn’t know if it was appropriate to tell him that I was also queer. That all changed thanks to 500 Queer Scientists. While scrolling through countless profiles on the website, I came across Dr. Kohl’s. Most of his profile was filled with things that I already knew from working in his lab, but his last sentence stuck with me. He said, “I enjoy serving as an informal mentor for LGBT+ students''. That was the invitation that I needed to come out to him. Later that week, I let him know that I was queer. Had it not been for the 500 Queer Scientists website that Dr. Esposito created, I wouldn’t have come out to Dr. Kohl. So not only was Dr. Esposito a world-expert arachnologist, but her advocacy and work for the queer community literally changed my life. So, I had to let her know. After submitting my application to work with her for the summer, I emailed her and shared how 500 Queer Scientists made a difference in my life. She responded by thanking me and saying that she would keep an eye out for my REU application. A few months later, by what I thought was pure luck, I got an acceptance email inviting me to work with Dr. Esposito to study scorpion venom evolution. When the summer rolled around, I flew to San Francisco, and moved into a big house with nine other interns. We all worked hard on our own research projects at the museum, took a course on systematics and biodiversity, did some field work, and explored the city whenever we could. It was the best summer I’ve ever had. My REU taught me so much about biology and about myself, it solidified my decision to pursue a career in science, it introduced me to incredible mentors, and it gave me life-long friends. I returned to Pitt after my REU and was more confident in every way. I pushed myself outside of my comfort zone and tried the things I always wanted to do on campus; I became a Pathfinder, joined a fraternity, and got a committee position on Student Government Board. My college experience has become so much more meaningful all because I pushed myself to pursue my childhood passion for bugs. So, as a senior who will be graduating all too soon, my advice is to do whatever makes you happy like you’re a kid again. Even if it’s in ways you don’t expect, those efforts will pay off in one way or another.
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January 2022
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