Martha Zepeda Rivera graduated in 2012 from the University of Washington with a B.S. in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology and biochemistry. During the summer of 2011, she worked through the EXROP program with HHMI investigator Matthew Waldor at Harvard Medical School, studying the cell biology of chemotaxis. She will be pursuing a Ph.D in cellular and molecular biology at Harvard University.
Why did you become interested in research?
In high school, I took a class where we were taught techniques – how you run a gel, how you separate out DNA. But it wasn’t ever really for a purpose – just learn a technique and then move on. But that’s what first got me thinking about what the techniques could be used for. I wanted to give research a try, and I started my freshman year at the University of Washington thinking that if I wasn’t going to like research, I might as well find out sooner rather than later.
So I began to work in Professor Merrill Hille’s lab studying cell motility in zebrafish embryos. And I really liked it. I liked that it wasn’t a textbook, that there wasn’t one right answer. You can have three different hypotheses or reasonings, and they could all be right. And there were a thousand different ways to go about testing them. I really liked that. I also liked that it’s not black and white, it’s not solid. It’s not like once this has been found, this is the way it is and that’s that. It’s very fluid, but at the same time builds upon itself over time.
What is the greatest obstacle you’ve faced in science?
I am used to being very independent. In a lab, you have to have a really good balance between just working by yourself and reaching out for people’s ideas and help. That was a challenge for me: figuring out what that balance was and not being scared to say, “I have no idea what I need to do from this point. Help me.” It’s a skill that I have to keep developing—figuring out who to go to for what and not being scared because of someone’s title.
What do you see as your future role within the community?
I really want to be a professor. I want to have my own lab and the freedom of researching what I want and feeling ownership of that research. But more than that, what drives me towards being a professor is the teaching aspect. I think that as a professor, you have to show enthusiasm for whatever you’re teaching, even if it’s the tenth year in a row that you’re teaching it. Because if you’re not excited about it, then how can students in your class be excited about it? And beyond that, I want to be able to inspire minority females in the classroom to say “Hey, I did it. I’m here. If you want to, you can of course do it.”
How will your Gilliam fellowship help you pursue those goals?
More than anything, the importance of this fellowship is the support and the recognition that, regardless of what your background is, you have the potential to do what it is that you want to do, and to have a very fulfilling career doing it. I think being surrounded by so many people who are all on that same track and can relate to all of the challenges of that track is something that is now going to be very important to me. The financial flexibility that the fellowship gave me has allowed me to pick a program that I think will train me the best for what I want to do: teaching and mentoring and doing research. But just as importantly, having all these strong mentors in my life will allow me to be a better mentor later on.
Photo: Kevin P. Casey/AP Images for HHMI
Jim Keeley
