36 Steets’ first thought was to major in biology as a prerequisite for medical school. “What other options did I have at the time?” she asks. A field botany class at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., answered Steets’ question. “I was dreading taking field botany but needed to fulfill my biology requirements, so in my junior year I finally enrolled in the class. “That course totally changed my life.” Today, as one of 100 junior faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences at OSU, Steets is changing student lives. A YOUNG MENTOR Four years ago, Steets came to OSU from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, where she was a postdoctoral fellow in biology. Her work was funded by a grant from the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, a program of the National Science Foundation. Her research in evolutionary ecology grabbed the attention of OSU administrators. In 2007, she was hired as an assistant professor of botany. She was 28. Steets’ curriculum vitae is impressive — two research fellowships, 14 peer-reviewed journal articles, numerous manuscripts in preparation, four research grants, about 40 conference presentations in the U.S. and abroad, as well as a slew of recognitions and awards. Steets teaches large classes that include general ecology and plant biology. She also has mentored more than 15 undergraduate and graduate students in botany at OSU. “It is fairly common for junior faculty to mentor students and I really enjoy conducting research with undergraduates,” Steets says. “The college focuses on a faculty member’s research prowess,” says Associate Dean for Instruction and Personnel Bruce Crauder, also a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences. “We focus on not only great research but the ability to work with undergraduates on their own research. It’s an asset to our students because not all universities emphasize undergraduate research. OSU does.” A SUCCESSFUL MENTORSHIP Alumna Lydia Meador, class of 2011, arrived on the Stillwater campus the same time as Steets. The bright 18-year-old from Broken Arrow, Okla., knew she wanted a career in science. One of Meador’s main goals was to gain research experience, not an easy task for an incoming freshman. “Undergraduate research is rather uncommon,” Meador says. “At OSU, however, it was very easy to get involved.” Meador graduated with a triple major in botany, microbiology and molecular genetics, and biochemistry and molecular biology. As part of OSU’s Freshman Research Scholars Program, Meador needed a mentor for the spring semester. “Lydia approached me to be her mentor and I was surprised that an 18-year-old was already motivated enough to be doing this,” Steets says. “I was impressed because researching a mentor and a research topic takes a lot of initiative at any age.” Steets mentored Meador her entire academic career at OSU. The two young women have a lot to boast about. Meador has 13 poster presentations, which are vital to a young scientist’s career; 30 awards, including being named a Wentz Research Scholar and Niblack Research Scholar; and membership in six honor societies. She was a 2010 Barry M. Goldwater Scholar and was named an Arts and Sciences Top 10 Senior and an OSU Outstanding Senior. Meador, 22, is at Arizona State University working toward a doctorate in biological design. Mentoring played no small part in Meador’s success. That first year, in Steets’ Life Sciences East basement laboratory (now housed in the Physical Sciences Building), Meador learned about Impatiens capensis, a type of jewelweed. Meador learned how to extract DNA from jewelweed, which involves adding various solutions to the plant material. “The process separates out all the other junk in the plant from the DNA,” Steets says. The following semester Meador won her first-ever Best Poster at the Oklahoma Academy of Sciences Technical Meeting. Steets says undergraduates traditionally tackle, at most, one research project. Meador worked on six projects with four professors with varying areas of expertise. During Meador’s sophomore and junior years, she examined the role of water stress in the evolution of leaf hair production and flowering time in Arabidopsis thaliana, known as mouse-ear cress. Steets taught Meador how to count plant hairs using a microscope, measure flowering time and identify other plant characteristics. This research project has the potential to help the agricultural community with drought issues and to find ways for plants to adapt to intense heat. Meador worked with Regents Professor David Meinke and Steets on her honors thesis, a study of tandem duplicated genes in the flowering plants A. thaliana and A. lyrata, also known as lyre-leaf rockcress, using data mining, bioinformatics and mutation-rate estimation techniques. Outside the botany department, Meador studied with associate professor Nurham Dunford, an oil and oilseed specialist in the College of Agricultural Science and Natural Resources. Meador researched tobacco cells one summer with North Carolina State University Assistant Professor DeYu Xie, an expert in phytochemistry and metabolic engineering. Although much of Steets and Meador’s time is spent looking into a microscope, there are the outings that return them to wide-open spaces like those of the professor’s childhood. It is fairly common for junior faculty to mentor students in the College of Arts and Sciences. Hear about assistant professor of botany Janette Steets and alumna Lydia Meador at http://gopok.es/lmeador.
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