Along with dinner, homework, and other typical uses, a young Rebecca Alexander could sometimes be found at her family’s dining table doing less typical things–like dissecting frogs. But it wasn’t behind her mother’s back.
For Alexander, science was pretty much the family business. Her father, a physics professor, would bring home telescopes from work to look at stars with his children. Her mother was a pediatrician, who loved not just helping kids, but also educating parents.
It was her mother who would clear the kitchen table and bring out the microscope, having Alexander and her two younger sisters examine–and dissect–the odd mouse or a bird she had pulled out of the pond. Scientific discovery was just part of their natural rhythm, making space at the table for the girls to ask questions and investigate.
“Science was just kind of what we did,” Alexander, who is now professor of chemistry and associate dean for research and community engagement at Wake Forest University, remembers.
What does the child of a doctor and a scientist grow up to be?
Alexander thought she would become a pediatrician like her mother, but when she realized she didn’t have the stomach for assorted bodily fluids, she crossed that off the list. And while she wasn’t into physics like her dad, she could see herself as a university professor. Her high school chemistry teacher suggested pairing her strengths in chemistry and math by studying engineering, so she started her higher education at the University of Delaware majoring in chemical engineering.
Alexander quickly discovered that engineering wasn’t for her, though her career path would intersect with engineering later, and pivoted to chemistry and biology. As a graduate student, she studied biochemistry, which led her to the ribosome, “the protein factory of the cell,” as she describes it. It’s the part of the cell that forms proteins by linking together amino acids.
(Credit: Harry Noller, UC Santa Cruz)
The ribosome allows Alexander to study chemical reactions in biological systems as the ribosome reads the codes in messenger RNA (mRNA) and catalyzes peptide bond formation to form proteins. These proteins are used for many cellular functions and are essential to sustaining life.
If you ask Alexander why she picked this area of research, she’ll tell you that it was because it was a biological system doing chemistry (the perfect marriage of her two interests), but also because–at the time–the ribosome was a structural mystery.
Today, we know the structures of many proteins and of RNA molecules, but when Alexander started her studies, researchers were only beginning to see individual proteins, not the exact structure of the more complex ribosome.
“The ribosome is this monstrous assembly of about 50 proteins and a whole bunch of RNA that kind of weaves in and out and holds the whole thing together,” Alexander says. “It was just too big to study its structure [in the 1990s]. It was very mysterious at the time, and that was exciting.”
In addition to research, Alexander also had a passion for teaching, so as she transitioned from her studies to a full-fledged career, she was looking for a position that would allow her to do both. At many institutions of higher learning, research was prioritized over teaching, but at Wake Forest University Alexander found a place that valued both in their faculty.
“Wake is special,” Alexander says. “There’s a value placed on teaching and teaching well–not just pawning teaching duties off on grad students or adjuncts. At Wake, we’re expected to take teaching seriously and devote a lot of energy and passion to our students.”
What bonds create success in the sciences?
Of all the different types of science, Alexander became a basic scientist. She got into basic science–not basic as in simple, but basic in the way that building blocks are basic–because she was curious about why things worked the way they did, about the rules that governed science. But these weren’t the only structures she studied while in school, she was also observing something else–the makeup of her classes.
As a student, in all her engineering, biology, and chemistry classes there were only ever a small handful of women, which was true of students and teachers alike.
During her postdoctoral research, Alexander worked for a professor at MIT. He was a mentor to her, and she recalls him telling her, “If you’re a woman in science, you must have been twice as smart as the guys to make it this far.”
True or not, these conversations led her to realize how lucky she was to have teachers and mentors who invited her to the conversation, who valued her input and made her feel welcome. Just like the ribosome she had spent so much time studying, the bonds that are created between mentors and students were essential for those pursuing science careers.
She had grown up in an environment that nurtured scientific pursuits and curiosity, thanks to her parents and mentors. They created a space and a culture of learning, of asking questions, and finding answers. She realized that she wanted–or needed–to replicate that kind of space for others, so that more diverse perspectives would find their way to the table.
How can you catalyze students’ pursuit of STEM education?
Alexander knew that if she wanted to open up the scientific table, she was going to have to find ways to engage students that had the greatest impact.
“Undergraduate research is known to be one of the high impact practices in undergraduate education,” Alexander says. “It’s something that makes a difference in students’ lives as far as where they’re going to go in the future, something they remember for years.”
Alexander started with research engagement. To encourage students to participate in undergraduate research, Alexander co-founded the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (URECA) Center. The URECA (pronounced “Eureka”) Center at Wake Forest University supports and celebrates undergraduate research across the whole institution.
At Wake Forest University, all undergraduate students have the opportunity, regardless of their discipline, to work on a scholarly project with a faculty mentor. These projects can be anything–they’re picked by the students, which allows them to explore the connections that interest them. Once a year, the URECA Center hosts “URECA Day,” where students can showcase the projects that they have worked on through poster sessions and presentations.
Alexander also tackled a second high impact practice: mentorship. At Wake Forest, she helps coordinate and promote the partnership of students with professors for one-on-one research. These research project partnerships can last anywhere from six weeks to several years. Regardless of length, these research projects allow students to pursue their interests, while providing mentorship opportunities.
As Alexander continued to observe her classes–this time, the ones she taught in chemistry–and interacted with students undertaking research of all kinds, she realized that truly inclusive STEM education would benefit from a more holistic cross-disciplinary approach.
How can students in STEM education bring their whole selves to their studies?
Alexander realized that her students had much more to bring to the table than just their intellect. They had talents and abilities that gave them unique perspectives, not just on life, but also on how they approach science.
“Wake Forest attracts a lot of students who are very smart, and they’re often very smart in multiple realms,” Alexander says. “As a teacher, I think it is important to acknowledge all the ways that they are contributing to the world, not just one way.”
At one point, Alexander was comparing notes with her colleague in the dance program at Wake Forest, and they realized that they shared multiple students who were majoring in biology or chemistry and also studying dance. To allow these students to fully bring themselves to the table, the two professors joined forces to create a class that explored scientific concepts through dance.
Through the class that Alexander and her colleague, Christina Soriano, taught, students got to explore how art–in the form of movement–could explain scientific concepts like base pairs or ribosome function, or how you could communicate how a disease like Parkinson’s affects the body.
The experience led Alexander to encourage her students to explore the intersections of art and science in whatever form. If you stop by her office, you can see a testament to the creativity students can bring to the challenge. Her office is adorned with paintings, photographs, fans and other objects that students have created to explain science in their own unique ways.
Helping students bring all their strengths to the table doesn’t always take an artistic form. For Alexander, sometimes it means exploring other subjects–like history–by teaching a course on the women (recognized or not) who contributed to Nobel Prizes.
And sometimes that means changing how you advise your students.
“Sometimes in academics there is a feeling that we must reproduce ourselves,” Alexander explains. “If you don’t go onto a PhD and become an academic, you’re not a success. But there are more ways that people can succeed and lots of places where you can be successful.”
Rather than coach students to continue to climb the academic ladder, Alexander encourages her students to take a look at all the paths that could include what they’re passionate about–maybe it’s medical school or getting a doctorate, but sometimes it’s looking into other STEM careers like science writing or genetic counseling that use other skills alongside their scientific know-how.
“Most students will never win a Nobel Prize or set the world on fire with a scientific discovery, but take a look at how they are still participating in science,” Alexander says. “How are they interacting and caring for people, making science more accessible to everybody? Those are equally important endeavors.”
Sometimes, Alexander’s pursuit of making room for all students to study science has taken on a more literal interpretation. Alexander’s research, to this day, explores how proteins are built within cells. Similarly, her leadership roles explore how the university can build relationships, partnerships, and physical spaces that–in turn–build a more inviting ecosystem.
How can physical space bring more people to the table?
While Alexander was a postdoc, she had a somewhat unusual experience. She had only been at MIT about six months when her advisor moved his lab to the Scripps Research Institute in Southern California. As is customary, a lot of his students moved with the lab, and Alexander was one of them.
Her advisor recruited her to coordinate the move, which meant equipment and temperature- sensitive samples had to make the voyage from Massachusetts to California. Logistics and timing were crucial, and once everything arrived in San Diego, Alexander helped design the space that was renovated to house the lab.
“That experience set me up for what would be part of my job 20 years later,” Alexander says.
Fast forward to 2016. When Wake Forest University decided to build a physical presence in the Innovation Quarter, the leadership brought all the department chairs together to explore what new academic programs could be housed there.
“The expectation was that there would be some particular value for the selected programs to be located in the Innovation Quarter,” Alexander explains. “There were three new programs that rose to the surface: biochemistry & molecular biology, medicinal chemistry & drug discovery, and engineering.”
Next, they needed to find a leader who could help a cross-disciplinary team develop an innovative new curriculum for three programs, determine which new faculty to recruit, design the space for the very specific needs of these programs, and coordinate the move of existing lab equipment and samples.
Who better to tap on the shoulder than Alexander, with experience in biology, chemistry–and yes, engineering–as well as moving a scientific lab?
“Years after that move to California, we’re building Wake Downtown, and I’ve kind of done this a little bit on a smaller scale. And I discovered I like building things,” Alexander says. “My postdoc advisor started a lot of biotech companies, and I never thought I was entrepreneurial like him, but this is entrepreneurship, just of a different kind.”
For seven years, Alexander served as director of academic programming for Wake Downtown, helping to lead development of the new undergraduate programs and facilities located in the iQ, a position that she kept until 2023.
How do you add more seats to the STEM education table?
Alexander has invested her career in making space for others to bring their full range of talents to the table–including her own. Sometimes these spaces are physical, like when she helped spearhead the development of Wake Downtown. Other times, this means making space for interdisciplinary research between students and teachers. Often, it’s crafting space for ideas and creativity to intersect and finding avenues to pursue the overlap.
Alexander may have conceptualized becoming a professor because of teaching, but discovered so many more possibilities when she gave space to all of her creativity. Those possibilities are what she continues to give to others, including the next step in her mission: finding the people least likely to have science set out on their kitchen table and bringing it to them.
She’s currently leading the Wake Forest LEAP Internship Program that offers paid lab internships in the summer to high school students from six Title I high schools in Winston-Salem. These six-week internships offer experiences across STEM disciplines, as well as providing students guidance for how to continue in the study of science.
“We’re exploring what the path is for a student who thinks they’re interested in a STEM career, but doesn’t know anybody who does science. We’re trying to create opportunities that will help them explore those careers,” Alexander says.
Science is hard, Alexander will tell you. And sometimes it’s messy, like a kid dissecting a frog on the kitchen table. But moving the scientific discourse forward isn’t about making replications of yourself or taking the same path that everyone else does. It’s about finding a way to bring all of yourself to the table and making room for others to do the same.
