Taryn Beckman '16 on the Trials and Triumphs of Becoming a Scientist

Taryn Beckman '16 is currently working towards her Ph.D. in Molecular Metabolism, and recently spoke with us about her studies at Kent and how she has always wanted to be a scientist.

What you are doing now. How would you describe your path that led you to this current moment in life?
I am working towards my Ph.D. in Jeffery Hubbell’s lab at the University of Chicago. My program is Molecular Metabolism, and my lab focuses on immuno-engineering approaches to inflammatory disease. I’m researching novel approaches to treating chronic inflammatory metabolic disease, like atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and MASH (metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis—aka fatty liver disease). My thesis work has covered organic synthesis and characterization, immune phenotyping, metabolic phenotyping and protein engineering. 

I am currently most excited about my work on a pro-metabolite therapeutic for metabolic dysfunction and disease. It’s well established that a diverse microbiome is good for you, and a high-fat diet depletes the bacterial diversity. We’ve developed a pro-metabolite approach to increase the circulation of a beneficial microbiome-derived small molecule, butyrate. Our approach, colloquially named “SerBut” (Seryl-Butyrate), allows butyrate to “escape” the gut by “hitching a ride” on amino acid transporters in the early gut. 

I didn’t always know I was going to be a scientist, but I’ve always wanted to be one. I remember distinctly all the classes I enjoyed most at Kent, most of which were science classes (with a couple exceptions for history classes). From Chemistry with Mrs. Detmer to AP Bio with Dr. Park, I loved each class and loved learning from confident and kind women. 

When I got to college, I initially decided to major in Molecular Biology. I soon found that I wanted to know more and changed my major to Biochemistry. I researched carbon-neutral fuel production catalysts in an inorganic chemistry lab and spent all my summers in the lab. I didn’t feel like a genius in these classes and received lots of help from my peers, but I had enough fun that it didn’t matter much to me. 

My senior year I applied to post-baccalaureate programs and PhD programs. I was split between chemistry and a more biology-focused path. I ended up moving to Boston to work at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT to delay this decision, but the pandemic hit, and my work there mostly consisted of scaling up automated COVID-testing processes. Although this was great engineering experience, I missed experimental design and wanted to return to research. I found my Ph.D. program through a speaker that came to the Broad, Prof. Suzanne Devkota at Cedars-Sinai. I was inspired by her work, read all her papers, and traced her career back to her Ph.D. advisor. This professor, Dr. Eugene Chang, was my first graduate school interviewer at the University of Chicago and now sits on my doctoral committee. At the beginning of grad school, I was full of creative ideas but lacked the skills to execute them. Now, I can get only a little closer to the ground truth, but I’ve had a lot of fun. There are very few jobs that give a 20-something so much opportunity to follow their own mind, and I have found that to be a very special, if at times challenging, experience! 

What makes you feel most fulfilled about what you are currently doing?
The most fulfilling aspect of my work is translating science to patient-facing applications that can help people. However, science is a team sport (and a grueling one, at that). It takes a lifetime to see a drug you invented go on to help people. I’ve also realized that paradigms are not created alone, and any work any scientist has ever done builds on the work of their peers. It sometimes takes a very smart and dedicated person who’s researching the right thing at the right time to realize the paradigm shift. Thus, I find more fulfillment in the day-to-day exploration and reflection than in the idea that maybe one day, I may have had a hand in improving someone’s health. That is still the core of translational science and underlies every scientific decision I make, but that’s not where I see my value as a scientist. Logic is beautiful, experimental design is beautiful, learning from my PI, Dr. Hubbell, is beautiful, making things with your hands is beautiful, and using tools that took decades to develop is beautiful. My Ph.D. has humbled me, satisfied me and made me a much happier person because of the insightful, hard-working people I get to work with and the clever projects I’m a part of. It is not an individualistic experience and has emphasized the value of other scientists’ different thinking. 

What feels most challenging about your current work or this phase of your professional life?
I love science partly because I love learning about things that seem unknowable. No matter how much you manage to discover in your Ph.D., you will never know what might come next. As I approach graduation, I struggle with not knowing what is next for me and my career. I wanted a Ph.D. because I wanted to experience becoming a scientist. Now that I am a scientist, I’m realizing that I haven’t thought much about what job I want as an “adult.” I struggle with where I want the line between complete immersion in projects and making time for my other interests and loved ones to fall.

In a less intrapersonal sense, the review process for manuscript publication can feel unforgiving. It’s a challenge to work so hard at something and receive (sometimes scathing) criticism. This is a common pitfall of identifying with your research, but it’s critical as a scientist to overcome that challenge if you want to produce the best possible science. My main thesis work has been completely written for five months and still has not been published! It takes a long time to get the color scheme just so. 

How did your Kent Denver education prepare you for what you are doing now?
My Kent Denver education was hugely impactful, as it was my first exposure to female scientists. I found inspiration in each woman in the science department, their friendship with each other, and, of course, their academic prowess. When I left Kent, I suddenly found very few female scientists evaluating and working with me. I am grateful I had that experience so early in life. Outside of science, my Kent Denver education gave me access to some of my greatest passions in life. I still love reading classic literature and philosophy! Learning how to read and think at Kent empowered me to explore these subjects on my own. 

How does being an alumna of Kent Denver School impact your sense of self now?
Going to Kent was, and is, a real privilege. Being a student at Kent meant extra support, the benefit of the doubt when I needed it, and access to invaluable resources, both academic and emotional. So many of my peers didn’t have the flexibility to “mess up” in a class, or to “check out” for a semester in high school. I certainly had these moments at Kent but always found support in my patient and gracious teachers. It’s superb that Kent allows its students to be kids and ensures that, when they do, they don’t prove final or fatal. My instructors always took the time to show me the cool, hard-to-understand things about the world. Those “things” were not easy to grasp, but being in a small class with people who believe in you can mean the difference between someone engaging thoughtfully with their studies and someone giving up. 

I feel like I could have easily become someone who didn’t engage in academia if I didn’t have the necessary support at important points in my life. I hate to think I could have missed out on all the joy I derive from it now. I am grateful, and I feel a duty to excel because of the extra chances I got. I hope that the time and resources my parents and all the teachers at Kent poured into me will result in a contribution (no matter how small) that will enrich the world in some way or another. 

Can you share a Kent Denver memory that brings you joy?
I loved playing volleyball in high school. I was absolutely terrible; it was such a joy. My friends and I were on junior varsity all the way through senior year because, frankly, we could not have made varsity. I felt a lot of pressure in high school, as I assume most young girls do, but I remember my volleyball team as an importantly unserious, silly and girly time. One of my long-time friends was on the team with me, and I am so thankful we were both terrible. I was awarded “most valuable player” of JV senior year, which I think is the funniest fun fact of all time. Isolating DNA from a strawberry in Biology was also very fun, and I have done the same experiment in many outreach programs!