Today will follow a group of six Golden Flashes for the 2024-25 academic year chronicling their efforts and successes during the fall and spring semesters. The group of students are at various places in their academic careers and will share their experiences throughout the year as they take part in our distinctive programs, research and global experiences.
Rebecca Stratton, a senior chemistry and math major, does not shy away from a challenge.
Stratton spent the summer of 2024 in ’s Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE), in which she participated for the first time when she was still in high school.
In the SURE program she worked with mentor Hao Shen, Ph.D., assistant professor in ’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Shen Research Group, assisting with his work on DNA as a catalyst.
And soon after the SURE program ended, the Ravenna resident boarded an airplane to Tawain to study abroad at Tamkang University’s Tamsui campus in New Taipei City. Stratton is minoring in Chinese and international relations.
Once she arrived in Taiwan, Stratton was totally immersed in the culture and language. She and her peers were required to speak solely in Mandarin except for communications with loved ones at home or professional encounters that required English correspondence. Or when she and her friends mixed English slang into their speech to make it easier or funnier.
“I would say that roughly 80% of the time I am maintaining solely Mandarin input and output,” Stratton said. “The exhaustion it creates is unlike any other mental tiredness I have experienced, and I often need to allow myself a little bit of English media and music at the end of my day just to rest my brain a bit. It also keeps me up to date with current happenings at home. Strangely enough, I find myself struggling to remember English words sometimes.”
Stratton told Today that she hopes to meld her love of natural science and research to her desire to communicate her work to those around her. Becoming bilingual is a necessity she says because “a communication-focused approach to science is the only way science can be worthwhile.”
During the SURE program Stratton said she learned about DNA catalysts that are not combined with other structures such as metals. In a paper she wrote about how the discovery of DNAzymes has been optimized for our current needs and how they can be combined with metals and soft matter to create a more effective catalyst.
DNAzymes were first discovered in 1994. Their creation marked a great breakthrough in therapeutics and biocatalysis, according to an article in the scientific journal Advanced Materials.
Increasingly, Stratton has been considering how linguistics and language are essential to understanding research because the desire to understand and to be understood is “one of the greatest motivators for progress, scientific and otherwise.”
“Without the ability and desire to share our results and collaborate, even the greatest discoveries would not have any tangible value,” Stratton said. “In the future, I know that I want to use both; but to be honest, I don't know what that looks like yet. Throughout this program, I have become painfully aware of how frustrating language barriers can be. I hope someday I can successfully help to navigate those barriers and contribute to the international scientific community.”