ug Alumni

What Science Can Do for You
Eden Haverfield, Ph.D.

Science is fascinating – or, at least I have always thought so. I first began to believe this when I was a student at Canterbury. I can trace my initial inspiration and passion for science back to middle school, when I started to become involved in science fair. What started as a requirement for science class quickly turned into a research project that I continued to pursue throughout high school. I found the idea of learning about a specific area of science a challenge – it was something I could teach myself in parallel to what I was learning in my high school science classes, and with time, I became an expert on an area of scientific research that interested me. I felt a tremendous amount of educational freedom in being able to design my own research project, and carry out experiments to test my hypotheses. I participated at the regional, state and international science fair competitions throughout high school, an experience that helped bolster my public speaking skills, confidence and instilled pride in me for what I had accomplished. It was tremendously rewarding to be able to speak with ease about my research to professional scientists who worked in governmental, academic and company settings. Not only did my science fair research expose me to information outside the scope of material taught in my classes, but it also helped direct my educational goals and ultimately the profession I knew I wanted to pursue.

I graduated from Canterbury in 1995, and went on to receive my B.A. in Biological Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1999. I then matriculated at the University of Oxford in Oxford, England, for a Masters degree in Human Biology. After receiving my M.Sc. in 2000, I went on to pursue a Ph.D. at Oxford in Genetics, which I completed in 2004. Since then, I have been working at the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, as a postdoctoral research fellow, and continuing further specialty training in focused areas of genetics. I have just completed a 2 year training fellowship in Pharmacogenomics – a sub-specialty field of genetics that is concerned with understanding how genetic variation can influence a person’s response to prescription medication. The goal of pharmacogenomics is to be able to predict how a person will respond to medication, increasing the efficacy of drugs and minimizing the number of adverse drug reactions that occur. I am now in the final stages of my scientific training. I have begun a second training fellowship in Clinical Molecular Genetics at the University of Chicago Hospitals that will certify me to direct a genetic testing lab in a hospital or company setting. My ultimate goal is to be the director of a molecular diagnostics lab that specializes in pharmacogenetic tests for clinical utility.

My dreams to become a research scientist started at Canterbury, but it has been my experiences in different disciplines of science that steered me into the field that I specialize in today. My advice is to use Canterbury’s scientific resources, science fair projects and Dr Glass’ words of encouragement and guidance as your starting off point for a career in science – it definitely helped me realize my professional goals and it may help guide you as you pursue further education.

For creating a history of independent research at Canterbury, research alumni please use alumni@uniquegenes.us to submit dates of competition (local, state and ISEF) and category entered while doing research at Canterbury

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