#SoCaltech: Rebekah Loving

“Where I'm from in Hawaii is one of those places where you get to be in nature so much. I love stargazing, being in the ocean, just exploring all the different parts of my island with my 11 siblings. Being so immersed in nature, I wanted to understand things and to explore and see beauty at a smaller and smaller scale. Also, from a very young age, certain medical conditions in my family made me want to do medically relevant work. I felt that if I could understand biology better, I could possibly start addressing some of these complicated diseases. When I started college, I knew that in order to work in the specific areas of biology that I wanted to, I needed to have computational skills. So, I focused on computer science and math, but I also did research, which included coming here to the Pachter lab for a WAVE Summer Research Fellowship in computational biology, where I worked on developing RNA-seq analysis methods. Now, here as a graduate student, I'm rotating in a wet lab where I can see all of the different factors that come into play when collecting data. Wet lab work actually reminds me of doing arts and crafts and hobbies that I enjoy like making jewelry and painting and cooking.”

Rebekah Loving is a first-year graduate student in biology and a former WAVE fellow at Caltech. She recently received a fellowship from the Department of Energy for her research in the laboratory of Lior Pachter (BS '94), Bren Professor of Computational Biology and Computing and Mathematical Sciences.

#SoCaltech is an occasional series celebrating the diverse individuals who give Caltech its spirit of excellence, ambition, and ingenuity. Know someone we should profile? Send nominations to magazine@caltech.edu.