Student Profiles

DOMINIQUE PABLITO

BS’20, Chemistry - Dominque Pablito grew up in the small town of Aneth, Utah, on the Navajo Nation, and in New Mexico on the Zuni Reservation. She lived in a four-bedroom house with 13 family members, sharing a bedroom with her mother and brother, and often visited relatives for extended stays.

Because her grandparents did not speak English, Pablito learned the Zuni and Navajo languages. Pablito said her father, an alcoholic, came in and out of her life.

With access to math and science courses limited in reservation schools, Pablito convinced her family to move. “We ran out of gas in Saint George, Utah, where I registered for high school even though my family was unable to find housing,” said Pablito. “During my first quarter at my new school, I slept in a 2008 Nissan Xterra with my mother, brother and grandmother while I earned straight A’s, took college courses at Dixie State University and competed in varsity cross country.”

Pablito achieved her goal of graduating from high school in three years, racking up honors and college credits.

“I graduated at 15 with an excellent GPA, having taken college courses at night and with exceptional ACT and SAT scores. I applied for 15 scholarships and was awarded 12, including the Larry H. Miller Enrichment Scholarship—a full ride.

Despite her hard work in high school, Pablito was not prepared for college academics and sought help from tutors, professors, and TAs.

“I spent late nights watching tutorials on YouTube,” said Pablito. “College retention rates for indigenous students are exceptionally low, so instead of going home for the summer, I sought out research internships and difficult coursework to keep busy.”

Academics were not her only challenge. “I started college at 15 and by age 16 I had no parents,” said Pablito. “My mother was abusive and we ceased contact. At 17, I was diagnosed with an adrenal tumor, which pushed my strength to its limits. I never felt more alone in my life.”

“I decided to major in chemistry when I participated in the PathMaker Research Program at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, where I used biochemistry to investigate DNA damage and repair in cancer cells,” said Pablito. “Dr. Srividya Bhaskara guided me through the world of research, helping me earn many awards and grants.”

During an internship at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Dominique used targeted photoactivatable multi-inhibitor liposomes to induce site-specific cell damage in various cancer cells.

“That’s where my research interest in cancer and molecular biology developed,” said Pablito. “That internship taught me how to effectively present scientific data and how important community can be for the success of Native American students.”

Her interest in medicine stems from her childhood experience with the Indian Health Service. “Many of my elders distrusted going to doctors because most health care providers are white,” said Pablito. “My great-grandfathers’ illnesses could have been treated much better had they visited a doctor sooner. I will use my medical training to improve the care of elders on my reservation by integrating culture, language and medicine.”

In addition to earning an MD in family medicine, Pablito plans to earn a doctoral degree in cancer biology and eventually open a lab on the Zuni Pueblo. “I want to spark an interest in STEM in future generations of Indigenous scholars,” said Pablito. “I want to give them advantages I never had.” - by D.J. Pollard, American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES)

ALEX ACUNA

BS’20, Biology, ACCESS Alumna - When Alex Acuna arrived at the U she experienced what many first-generation students do: “I had no access to people who understood the system I was trying to navigate. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. How do you bridge the gap in knowledge,” she asks, “without a network of people?” The answer is you probably don’t.

“I had no access to people who understood the system

I was trying to navigate. ” The Access Program was a life ring–providing a first-year student cohort with summer housing to familiarize students with campus life and the realities of research based science. Acuna discovered she was a natural at lab work. “Alex joined my lab with an enormous amount of raw talent. It was a pleasure to help her recognize her remarkable facility for research,” says Leslie Sieburth, Co-Director of the School of Biological Sciences.

An opportunity seized soon presents other opportunities. Currently, Acuna does research in the Tristani-Firouzi lab where they study the genetic component of atrial fibrillation, one of the most common types of cardiac arrhythmia.

What’s next for Alex Acuna? “I know that I’m definitely moving on,” she says of her career as a scientist. “I’m just not clear what direction: academics or medical school.” As a paid undergraduate research assistant, though, one thing she is sure about: “I’ve found a sustainable model. “

ISAAC MARTIN

2020 Goldwater Scholar - During middle school and most of high school, Isaac Martin lived in Dubai with his family, where he attended an online high school. When his family moved to Utah the summer before his senior year, he decided to attend Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) instead of finishing high school, taking as many math and physics classes as he could.

“It was incredible because I had never had teachers like that before,” said Isaac. “My professors at SLCC were more than happy to talk with me after class and during office hours. They were instrumental in my decision to switch out of my pre-declared computer engineering major into a math and physics double major at the U.”

During Isaac’s first four semesters at the U, he intended to pursue a physics Ph.D. and focused primarily on physics classes; however, after brief stints in two different labs, he realized mathematics is a better fit for his talents and interests.

He is indebted to professors in the Math Department, including Dr. Adam Boocher, previously a postdoc at the U and now assistant professor of mathematics at the University of San Diego; Professor Srikanth Iyengar; Dr. Karl Schwede, Dr. Thomas Polstra; and Professor Henryk Hecht. “The thing I appreciate most about my mentors is their willingness to take time out their day to talk to me and offer advice,” said Isaac. “My conversations with them are mathematically insightful, but they also reassure me that I’m worth something as a person and am good enough to pursue a career in math.”

When he’s not doing math, Isaac is most likely either playing piano, rock climbing, running in the foothills, or beating his roommates in Smash Bros Ultimate. “I used to have a huge passion for video game programming and would compete in game jams, which are game development competitions held over 36- or 48-hour time intervals,” said Isaac. “I haven’t been able to do that much in the last few years, but would like to pick it up again as a hobby.”

Isaac hopes to have a career in academia as a pure mathematics researcher.

They reassured me that I am good enough to pursue a career in math. ”

“I’d especially like to study problems in commutative algebra and representation theory with relevance to mathematical physics,” he said. Isaac also remains interested in the world of condensed matter. “There is so much novel mathematics dictating theoretical condensed matter, and I expect many exciting breakthroughs will happen there in the near future.”

DALLEY CUTLER

BS’20, Biology - Dalley Cutler’s personal hero is Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish activist invited to the United Nations to advocate for reversing man-made climate change and who was subsequently named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. Like Greta, this Idaho Falls native wants to see sensible policies and actions based on scientific understanding.

The same is true of his own research in the Dentinger lab. “Many producers are either incorrectly identifying wild mushroom food products or are purposely lying about the species contained in those food products,” he says. “There are no international or national regulations to protect consumers from buying and eating poisonous wild mushrooms sold on the internet as edible wild mushrooms.” He uses metabarcoding genomic analysis techniques to identify species sold as wild mushrooms in food products.

“I generated the data some time ago,” Dalley says, “but due to work obligations I was unable to accurately analyze that data.”

A scholarship provided by alumni donor George R. Riser was a game-changer, providing time away from work obligations to write software that will streamline future projects.

Cutler has hopes to work in a field where he can use scientific techniques to better understand the natural world and to use that understanding to protect and conserve vulnerable ecosystems from the impacts of the climate and ecological crisis that will be occurring over the course of his life.

LYDIA FRIES

2020 Goldwater Scholar - As a junior in chemistry, Lydia intends to obtain a PhD in either organic chemistry or electrochemistry. She has done research in both Matt Sigman’s and Shelley Minteer’s groups, and Lydia is an author on two papers with both professors. She has worked on a variety of projects involving electrochemistry, palladium catalysis, and computationally focused projects.

As an undergraduate she enrolls in many graduate-level courses and is a Teaching Assistant for Organic Spectroscopy I. Lydia has committed to an internship at Genentech and hopes that the current pandemic will have subsided by the time her internship is to begin.

With encouragement from high school teachers, Lydia followed her passion and her strong aptitude for STEM subjects, and ignored the warnings from her broader community that she shouldn’t pursue such an expensive and “useless” degree. She followed her heart and her brain to the University of Utah where she landed in the ACCESS program and was immediately surrounded by many intelligent and motivated women.

In addition to her studies, Lydia enjoys rock climbing and spending time outdoors, and is currently staying safe at home in St. George.

ANA ROSAS

BS’20, Biology - Rosas recalls her grandmother dying just one month after being diagnosed with untreatable and advanced

liver cancer. “During my grieving, I thought about what, if anything, could have been done to prolong my grandmother’s life. Was the late diagnosis due to my grandmother’s Hispanic heritage? Her community’s mistrust of physicians? Socioeconomic barriers?”

At the University of Utah as a biology major intent on going to medical school, Rosas quickly realized that she didn’t have the same resources or opportunities, finding that she was on her own to navigate, for example, finding a lab to do research. She didn’t know anyone in the health sciences.

Seventy emails later she landed in Dr. Albert Park’s lab at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City where she worked to better remove laryngeal cysts in infants. The learning curve was steep but her work with Park resulted in a poster presentation at a national Otolaryngology meeting and a first authorship in a related prestigious

international journal. “I have not had many undergraduates achieve so much in such a short time,” Park says of Rosas.

Ana has been working in not one but two labs. With Kelly Hughes she works with bacteria, specifically Salmonella, and focuses on identifying the secretion signal for a regulatory protein that is required for proper flagellar formation.

Her second lab experience with Robert C. Welsh in the School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry uses imaging equipment to determine where ALS (Alzheimer’s) patients are in the progression of the disease.

Rosas is treasurer of the InSTEM group on campus and has helped initiate the new Health Sciences LEAP program which does science outreach in high schools. “I want to help minorities like me,” says Rosas, “better navigate college for the first few years.”

Applying to medical schools has provided the chance to reflect on her journey and, considering the barriers and uncertainty she first felt, that journey has proven to be an auspicious one.

DELANEY MOSIER

BS’20, Physics, College of Science Research Scholar - April 8th, 2020 - Today I am contemplating what it means to not have a graduation ceremony at the end of this month. I cannot help but remember another time in my life when I experienced similar feelings of loss. When I was 12 years old, a wildfire ravaged my home state of Colorado. I lived in an evacuation zone and had to quickly leave my home with few possessions in tow. For weeks, my family lived without knowing whether we still had a home. As the firefighters waded through rubble and assessed the damage, we waited for an official statement. We felt completely untethered from normalcy; we were in limbo. When we finally got the news that our house had burned down completely, it was both relieving and terrifying. Everything we had known was destroyed and the future was uncertain, but at least we could keep moving forward. It was overwhelming to think of rebuilding our entire lives, but we made it through a devastating situation with the support of our community. We were able to find a new home within several months and we adapted to our new normal.

There is a quote my brother found which perfectly grasps my outlook on the fire, now that 8 years have gone by: “Now that my house has burned down, I can see the sky more clearly.” Losing everything can clarify what is really important to you. I carry this lesson forward to the present day, when the future I have been working toward is now unclear. My graduation ceremony that I have been looking forward to for years is now postponed. I unknowingly spent my last day in person with my peers and instructors, and will never truly have closure. It will take time to mourn this loss. Yet, I know we will adapt and we will rebuild. The life we have known has crumbled, and now we can see the sky clearly. What is important to you? What are you willing to fight for? How can you reclaim your future and use your past to fuel you?

Remember to take time to celebrate your accomplishments and be proud. Earning a diploma is just as much of an achievement without the pomp and circumstance. - by Delaney Mosier