BMB Community Profiles
This page was created to celebrate the perspectives of our community members who want
to share a little bit about their stories and lives. We recognize that the range of
life experiences represented in our community is much less diverse than the State
of Michigan or the United States as a whole, and that continuous effort and concrete
actions are necessary to correct this. Consequently, by sharing our profiles, we hope
to forge new connections based on common interests and experiences. Please contact
Dr. Michaela TerAvest if you are a member of the BMB community and you'd like to share your story! (updated
Nov 20, 2020)
Please visit the webpage for the BMB DEI committee and College of Natural Science DEI website to learn about specific actions related to hiring, admissions, and community support.
Sophia Lunt - BMB Community Profile
Sophia overcame discrimination as a young person to become an award-winning professor who studies how metabolism affects human disease
Amy Ralston - BMB Community Profile
Amy's life long love of developmental biology began with a job as an undergraduate dishwasher in a university biology lab
Michaela TerAvest - BMB Community Profile
Mentoring and exploring many career options helped Michaela become an innovative researcher who engineers microbes for bioenergy production
Erich Grotewold - BMB Community Profile
Trained as a chemist in Argentina, Erich continues to move west and north as he tries to decipher the secrets of the regulation of plant gene expression
Rob Last - BMB Community Profile
An early love of organic chemistry and ornithology lead to Rob becoming a highly successful scientist and a leader in his field while generating support for underrepresented/marginalized people in STEM
Jenn Watts - BMB Community Profile
As a young scientist inspired by technical advances in developmental biology, Jenn seeks to ask why diseases differentially impact people and communities
Josh Vermaas - BMB Community Profile
Undergraduate research put Josh on a path to save the world with computers, designing simulations to figure out the natural world