Samuel Seaver
Why did you choose Northwestern?
I had a job as a technician in a lab at Northwestern before deciding to join the graduate program. I liked Northwestern, the location, and had gotten to know some of the faculty.
How would you describe your research and/or work to a non-academic audience? What was it then and/or what it is now?
I currently work on maintaining a database of plant biochemistry, an approach for predicting plant enzymes based on protein sequences, and the reconstruction and simulation of plant metabolism on the computer. I'm able to evaluate how the resulting metabolic network behaves under different environmental conditions, and provide hypotheses as to how a plant species could be engineered to grow better.
Tell us who or what inspired your research and/or work.
I discovered biochemistry and molecular biology in high school, I remember learning about the Calvin Cycle, and appreciating how the network structure enabled it to "work" and wanting to be involved in such research. When I was doing my bachelor's I learned about computational biology and took a master's in bioinformatics.
What are you most proud of in your career to date?
Becoming a full scientist, had been my ambition since I was a teenager discovering molecular biology
Tell us about a current achievement or something you're working on that excites you.
My metabolic reconstructions allow me to evaluate how the solar energy from light can be distributed across many metabolic pathways via small electron-carrying proteins, and each plant carries a different number of these oxidoreductive proteins that have been understudied in the context of the metabolic network so I'm excited to work on something that may provide new insight.
What advice would you give your younger self or someone considering a similar path?
When I started to discover my passion for science, I read a few books on the history of scientific discovery, including some biographies of famous scientists, but these did not prepare me for how truly collaborative 21st-century science is. As such, being able to interact and manage with a team, on several levels, including emotional and mental, is an important skill that can be developed, I'd advise aspiring scientists to invest in, and get experience with working in teams.