I have been in Washington, DC since the beginning of June, and can hardly believe I am finishing my fourth week interning at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Thanks to the PSF, I was able to sublet a great place near a metro stop, in a quiet neighborhood, with a grocery store, a few restaurants and a park nearby. But, I don’t spend much time at home. During the week I leave my place by eight in the morning and usually don’t return until nine at night.
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Maya with lab partners
This is the first of a series of blogs about the adventures of a Reed President's Summer Fellow. I am a student of philosophy learning the ropes of interdisciplinary studies for two months in Paris, France. I am focusing on the philosophic implications behind scientific research in a microbiology lab at ENS-Cachan led by Dr. Bianca Scalvi. The research at this lab is based on trying to understand the initiation of DNA replication.
I am neither a scientist, nor a philosopher. I am simply someone who wants to understand the way our society works. I have a background in chemistry, and spent a summer synthesizing organic compounds in a lab directed by Dr. Youngblood at UNT. That experience offers me an advantage in the microbiology lab. I am familiar with the environment of a laboratory and I am able to understand the basics of the research without too much trouble. My background in philosophy seems to have been with me since I was a child, yet I have only come to realize how much I enjoy the discipline when I started at Reed College two years ago. I have taken some courses in philosophy at Reed, and I try to approach each situation I find myself in with an open and philosophic mind.
Continue reading Notes from a Paris Biology Lab, Presidents Summer Fellowship