John Guilinger, G2
John Guilinger grew up in Boulder, Colorado, where he learned to love running early. He ran competitively both in high school and as an undergraduate at Brandeis University. John is also an avid outdoorsman. He enjoys both climbing mountains in Colorado and hanging out on the beaches of Massachusetts.
As you might have guessed, John also loves conducting biology experiments. He was introduced to research during his first year at Brandeis, and worked on numerous projects there, all having to do with the study of mechanisms of DNA mutation and repair in E. coli.
At Brandeis, John had the chance to take part in two novel research experiences. One was at Cold Spring Harbor and the other was in a new advanced laboratory course for undergraduates. In both instances, John worked as a teaching assistant with a group undertaking novel research on DNA mutation and repair in E. coli. His enjoyable undergrad research experiences led John to graduate school. John says that “Going to school and conducting research (and getting paid for it, too) at a top-notch institution, such as Harvard, is spectacular.” John has found the required and elective classes to be “excellent and practical.” He especially likes the department’s commitment to teaching quantitative reasoning.
John came to Harvard primarily because he was not ready to leave the Boston area. “I definitely enjoy the area,” John said. “And, while I anticipated correctly [that] a lot of time is spent in lab, there is some time to have fun outside the lab even on the busiest weeks.”
John says he picked Harvard over other programs in the area because he really liked the size of MCB, where “most of the professors in the department at least know of you (for better or worse), and there is a great support network for students in the program.”
John’s scientific interests are fairly diverse. As a first-year student, he’s been rotating through a number of labs. So far, he has rotated through Dr. David Liu’s lab, studying biological chemistry; Dr. Victoria D’Souza’s lab, where he looked at RNA structure using NMR; and finally Dr. Ann Pearson’s lab, where he investigated biomarkers from environmental microbes. John said the decision about which labs to rotate through was fairly difficult, and he expects choosing his final destination to be a hard, but fun, decision.
John’s ideal future career is in academic research in the life sciences. He enjoys studying natural processes as both an intellectual pursuit and the knowledge that these efforts often relate to advances in medicine. While he’s not “absolutely positive” that he will become a professor, John is certain that he’ll pursue a career in science. John is also very excited about the prospect of teaching, as he feels that it’s an extremely important part of the graduate-school experience.
