James Beckett '11 is training for a career as a physician-researcher in the dual M.D.-Ph.D. degree program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "There is a great need in medicine for novel scientific research. I'd like to pursue drug discovery and development for cancer treatment."
"I had a lot of help from the science faculty in finding research opportunities on and off campus that would not have been available to me at a large school." Key experiences included participation in the National Science Foundation's Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program that enabled him to spend a summer working on the development of biodegradable plastics at the IBM Almaden Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, and an American Chemical Society research fellowship that paid for him to attend a conference at the Pfizer Global Research and Development Headquarters in New London, Connecticut. He was a Kenyon Summer Science Scholar, working in the laboratory of his academic advisor John Hofferberth, assistant professor of chemistry.
I had important help from Maureen Tobin, Kenyon's medical school advisor, who helped to prep my application specifically for M.D.-Ph.D. programs. Also, while interviewing I spoke with Kelly Burke '06, an M.D.-Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins who helped me to make my decision about schools.
"I knew I wanted to go to a small school where it was important to have close relationships with professors. Their commitment to mentoring is one of the reasons I came here. Beyond that, Kenyon offers a warm, friendly community that allows students to grow and thrive. I definitely found what I was looking for."