4th year MET doctoral student Catherine Pettinger (lab of Erica Majumder) spoke to MET program manager Ezra Mauk about her research and experience in the MET program.
| Name | |
| Catherine Pettinger | |
| Start Term for MET Degree (e.g., fall 2025) | |
| Fall 2022 | |
| Advisor(s) | |
| Erica Majumder | |
| Describe your educational background prior to joining the MET program. | |
| B.A. College of St Benedict, Biochemistry Major/Music Minor A few other experiences between undergraduate and grad school, including: AmeriCorps Cape Cod (natural resource management) and Aldevron LLC as a Biochemistry QC Analyst |
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| What attracted you to the MET program? | |
| My overarching interest is water quality and how it connects with health (human and environmental). I worked in the outdoor recreation and natural resource management space for a while, interacted with public health departments in a couple roles directly and indirectly, then in a lab performing assays related to biomanufacturing. Toxicology seemed like a great fit to bridge all my interests: water health, labwork, and public health. The MET program specifically attracted me as there are lots of interdisciplinary opportunities at UW-Madison for my multi-faceted interests. | |
| Describe the focus of your thesis research project. | |
| The main focus is uranium biogeochemistry, and the specifics of fate/transport of U at a contaminated site. How does it vary from other sites? How does that inform site-specific remediation options? How do abiotic and biotic reactions interact? | |
| What do you consider as your most interesting or exciting finding to date? | |
| Stay tuned! Working on a couple different projects right now with data out soon. | |
| Currently, what are your postgraduation career goals/plans? | |
| I will be seeking a post-doc or government role. Originally I wanted to work for the government in water quality management, but I have strongly enjoyed original research/the academic setting and am looking into more classic research-track post-doctoral roles alongside my original goals. | |
| Looking back, what advice would you give to a student who just started graduate school? | |
| Really think about WHY you’re in graduate school. It is easy to get caught-up in the publication/research stress. Taking the time to reflect on what your goals are and how far you’ve come can reorient you to what YOUR priorities are. A major point of graduate school is to learn; not knowing things is expected (as well as the attitude that if you don’t know it, there are many ways to learn it/seek out those resources). | |