NEWS FROM OUR STUDENT SOCIETIES WHAT ARE OUR ALUMNI UP TO?

Together the Biology Society also did some traveling; we went on a whale watching cruise and aquarium trip, where we got to experience whales in their natural habitat. The Biology Society also brought some traditions back by hosting our yearly t-shirt contest, which the winning design was featured in our new shirts. Some other events we hosted were our “Celebrate the Holidays” party, as well as multiple tabling events through the semester, during the Darwin Festival and other campus events. The Biology Society mission has always included giving back to our community which is why we participated in the Revere Polar Plunge for the Special Olympics. Through our collective efforts we were able to fundraise over $1300 and our members also plunged in the freezing water to show our support.

Finally, to close the semester we have planned our Earth Day Festival, where we will plant a tree in north campus as a pledge to be more sustainable in our future events. This year has truly been one of the best one for BioSociety so far, we are beyond grateful for all the amazing events and opportunities we were able to host and offer to our members. This year only serves as motivation for us, we have very ambitious plans for next year, with the end goal always being to support and educate our Salem State students. We hope to continue our success into the future and to leave a positive impact not only on our members but on the whole Salem State community. If you want to get involved follow us on Instagram @biosociety_ssu or stop by our office in Meier 533. Our Biology Society is doing great things and you won’t want to miss them, GO BIO!

Morelia Morel Diaz – outgoing President of the BioSociety

Scuba Club

The SCUBA Club at Salem State University is a student-run organization dedicated to coordinating dive opportunities for licensed divers, educating others and implementing sustainable practices, and helping students receive their dive certifications.

The club president, Samantha Fink, recently renewed the club, as it was inactive for multiple years due to lack of student interest. At present, the club has around 20 members, with new students signing up every week! The SCUBA Club has recently participated in multiple events, including the Biology Society’s big Earth Day festival.

Within our club, the goal is to help students receive their diving certifications, whether it be as a helpful addition for marine biology students, a valuable skill, or just as a hobby. With the recent campus pool closure, we are currently devising a plan for next semester to help students get certified for the least possible cost to students.

The SCUBA Club at Salem State aims to educate and inspire the world’s future biologists by introducing them to diving practices and first-hand encounters with marine flora and fauna.

Samantha Fink, SCUBA Club President, Biology Student, May 2023

Megan Fernandez And Her Career In Zebra Fish Research

After being micromanaged in a career for 5 years that I just chose because it seemed like a good idea, I left my full-time job and went back school as a non-traditional student. I’ve always been fascinated by aquatic environments, so I dove into Marine Biology. I graduated from SSU in 2020 with a BS in Biology and a concentration in Marine Biology.

My Marine Biologist career started off as a research intern/volunteer for Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation working on a whale watch boat in Gloucester, MA. I collected data on whale behavior and educated passengers on whale anatomy and conservation. I worked with Drs. Popolizio and Killpack, conducting research and pilot studies to update the lab curriculum of BIO131. I also worked with Dr. Joe Buttner on daily maintenance of the aquaponic system and completed an expansion project on it.

Today, I’m the Aquatics Facility Manager for the zebrafish labs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Our main facility is

4,000 square feet and houses ~6,000 tanks. We have 2 very large custom recirculating filtration systems. We also have a smaller satellite facility nearby. Zebrafish have 70% the same genome as humans and are used as genetic model organisms by scientists in our labs to conduct cardiovascular, neuromuscular, and immunological research. I started out at BWH as the full-time technician for 2 years and then moved up to Facility Manager. I have a staff of research technicians (2 are from SSU) that help me with daily operations like feeding the fish and maintaining the facility. It’s a 7 day a week, 365 days per year operation. My main responsibility is the welfare of the fish. We are accredited by laboratory animal welfare groups, and I must keep up standards to stay in operation. A large part of my job is to maintain the filtration systems and the facility itself. This requires a lot of problem solving because things break, and I must figure out how to fix them. I regularly collaborate with engineers, veterinarians, scientists, and others in the zebrafish research community to keep everything running smoothly and to stay current.

I started out at SSU having a general idea about what I wanted to do, naturally fell into a good career with lots of hard work, and now I feel like I’m at the place where I’m happy and can thrive. Five years from now, I hope to become an Associate Director of the animal research department and take on even more administrative responsibilities. My professors at SSU helped give me the confidence to keep going when things got hard, and they have been an invaluable asset on my continuous journey to thrive.

Kayley Lefrancois And Her Career In Biotechnology

I transferred to Salem University via the Mass Transfer program after completing an Associate’s in Liberal Arts at North Shore Community College. I had always loved science and biology and was aspiring to be a high school science teacher. The same year I transferred to SSU I was diagnosed with a genetic mutation of my BRCA1 gene. This type of mutation meant I had something known as Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Syndrome and put me at a really high risk of developing a handful of different cancers like my mother had battled much of my teenage years. I spent countless hours trying to learn about cancer and the biology that drives it, repair proteins and signaling cascades, and eventually became enthralled by cell biology, cancer biology and cellular signaling pathways.

I shifted my unfocused biology degree to a concentration in Biomedical Science and during my Senior year at SSU I applied to the internship program at Cell Signaling Technology (CST) - a private, local, biotech company right in the heart of Danvers that develops world-class antibodies and other research tools to help drive and accelerate biological understanding and research in all sorts of areas of the life sciences. I worked in the “ChIP” group performing chromatin immunoprecipitation assays to help develop antibodies that investigate one or several specific protein-DNA interactions or interactions across the whole genome. I enjoyed generating exciting data using these benchtop assays but what I really fell in love with that summer was cell culture. The tissue culture lab had hundreds of cell lines they worked with and manipulated them in all sorts of ways to induce a range of biological responses… and they got to watch it all unfold under the microscope. It captivated me.

During my final weeks as an intern at CST, a position was posted for a Research Associate

I on the product development team’s Model System and Tissue Culture Core. I applied to the position and received a part-time contract with the agreement that I would go full-time immediately upon graduation in December 2017. The work in this group is so exciting to me that I work on the same team to this very day. Over the last 6 years my role has grown from RA I, to RA II, then Senior RA, to my current role as a Group Leader. In this position I am lucky enough to work with my own team of RAs to create biological model systems used for testing and validating all of CST’s various products and projects in development. Every day we use a variety of cell lines originating from biobanks, collaborators, or isolated in-house from human whole-blood or animal tissues and modify or treat them to create an array of biological model systems for testing. My job is exciting to me every, single day! I feel very lucky to work at CST.

CST is a unique company in many ways and prides itself on its commitment to our local community. This becomes evident when you see the immense presence of CST employees who are also fellow Viking grads here. On my team alone, 3 of 16 members are SSU alumni (and another on the way)! Across all of development there are over 10 (recent) SSU alumni, just that I can name quickly off the top of my head. I continue to accredit this to the incredible teachers in the biology department at SSU and their relentless devotion and passion for their students, year after year. I hope the relationship between CST and SSU continues to grow and that we can continue to work together to create a thriving, local, scientific community for years to come.