Getting a Head Start on a Research Career
Sometimes things don’t go exactly as you plan, but the end result is better than you could have ever hoped for.
That is what happened for Kaylee Kotz as she searched for a summer job in 2007. Kotz, who is majoring in chemical engineering with a minor in biology, planned to attend summer school and needed a job that would fit around her class schedule. She decided to apply for a waitressing position and asked one of her chemical engineering professors, Derrick Rollins, if he would be a reference for her.
Rollins had a better idea. He invited Kotz to come talk to him about working on diabetes research in his lab. She enthusiastically accepted the offer.
The opportunity matched Kotz’s career goals perfectly. As a senior at Tipton High School in eastern Iowa, Kotz had chosen chemical engineering as her major because she wanted to prepare for a career in the biomedical field doing disease and cancer research. “My family has been affected by breast cancer and by diabetes,” she explains. “I thought this career path would be a way for me to try to help people with these diseases.”
Although Kotz selected Iowa State because of its reputation as a strong engineering school, she didn’t know she would get a head start on her research career as an undergraduate. She is now a project manager for a team of undergraduate and graduate students.
“Our goal is to develop a noninvasive monitoring device that will be used to manipulate insulin,” Kotz explains. “Basically we are taking the human out of control of their glucose. The device is considered to be an artificial pancreas.”
While Kotz will complete her BS degree in May, she isn’t planning a big graduation party or even a break in her studies. That’s because she has already started her graduate program. If all goes as planned, she will graduate again in 2012.
The decision to begin graduate work while still an undergraduate was fairly easy for Kotz. “I knew from working in the lab that I liked doing research and wanted to continue on and get my graduate degree here,” she says.
As a fifth-year senior last fall, Kotz already had most of the credits she needed to graduate but was spreading them out so she could take the biology courses she wanted. Beginning her graduate program while still an undergraduate would allow her to take full advantage of her time.
“I knew some students in other departments who were in concurrent programs,” Kotz says, “so I talked to Dr. Rollins about getting into the graduate program, and he agreed to take me on as a graduate student.”
Since the chemical and biological engineering department doesn’t have an official concurrent program, Kotz looked up how to do it and then worked out the details. “If I pass my prelims,” she says, “I won’t have to get an MS. I can go directly to my PhD.” As her ultimate career goal, Kotz would like to be head of research and development at a biomedical or pharmaceutical company.
Kotz has become rather adept at pursuing goals that pose obstacles. Her resolve to succeed began in high school where chemical engineering was a rare career choice for girls. “If you know you like something or are really interested in something, it’s important to have the courage to pursue it,” she says. “I was told too many times that I wouldn’t succeed, but it just gave me more motivation to stick it out.”
