Power of 100 Southwest ARCS Scholar (2018-2020)

Freddie was a PhD candidate in Dr. Michael Freeman's lab in the department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics (BMBB), where she studied natural product biosynthesis. Natural products are structurally diverse metabolites produced by organisms that often provide a survival advantage under specialized ecological or metabolic conditions. These molecules are very often used for medical or industrial applications as antibiotics, anti-cancer compounds, and food preservatives, to name a few.

With the ARCS Scholar award, Freddie had the freedom to attend out-of-state conferences during her graduate school career. This award also provided her with freedom to spend more time mentoring high school students through their independent research projects. Freddie received her PhD in the spring of 2020 and is working as a research scientist at Beckman/Coulter in Chaska, Minnesota.