The Young Scientist Program: Promoting K-12 Life Science in Local Communities
When Briana Rocha-Gregg was young, her dream of becoming a scientist didn’t seem like a possibility. The path to higher education was untrodden and unfamiliar to the Stockton, Calif. native. She had no tangible examples of people with a college education in her life. To Rocha-Gregg, practicing science seemed like a privilege only open to special people.
“Even at community college, I had a counselor tell me that I was wasting my time trying to be a scientist because I was a mother, and it wasn’t really feasible to balance those things,” said Rocha-Gregg.
She proved her community college counselor wrong.
In 2014, Rocha-Gregg graduated from UC Davis with a degree in cell biology. Today, as a biochemistry, molecular, cellular and developmental biology Ph.D. student, she studies how neutrophils, a type of white blood cell, track down and fight pathogens.