It’s interesting where life carries you. After working for 17 years for a local company, I found myself “downsized” and without a job. Since my husband was still employed in the area, our family made the decision to stay in the area significantly limiting the number of science-related jobs available to me. With two children at an age that increasingly required me to have schedule flexibility, I opted to find a situation that provided me with that flexibility, was intellectually challenging, and was science-based.

I ended up volunteering part-time at WMU’s Great Lakes Environmental and Molecular Sciences Center, or GLEAMS, with the intention of keeping my science experience and knowledge at the cutting edge. The Center studies the effects of environmental pollutants at the cellular, molecular, and genetic level and I found the work interesting and challenging. With my background in toxicology and animal science, I felt that my experience could contribute to the research carried out at GLEAMS while I learned the newer technologies used there.

A photo of Graduate Student Rene Zaya in front of East Hall
Rene Zaya

I had often considered earning a Ph.D. so I decided to do just that after volunteering for several months at GLEAMS and I started my program in the fall of 2005. My thesis is concerned with the affects of Atrazine, one of the most widely used herbicides in the U.S., on the African Clawed frog, a laboratory frog model. Atrazine has been found to cause cancer in animals, is an endocrine disruptor and has been attributed to the feminization of frogs, and is also thought to be a mutagen. Eventually, our data will be available to the EPA to help evaluate atrazine for reregistration. In addition to laboratory research, I have had the pleasure to mentor three undergraduate students through their capstone projects. I have also taught a laboratory section of the Human Physiology course offered by Biological Sciences.

My aim is to graduate in 2009 with my PhD. I would like to continue to conduct research in the field of environmental sciences and toxicology. Following graduation, I plan to find a postdoctoral program after which I hope to get an academic position at a research university or find a research position with a governmental agency. Of course, these plans assume that things remain at the status quo and as I have learned in the recent past, life is full of shifting opportunities. I look forward to seeing what these opportunities have to offer.

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