Emma Thornton-Kolbe '17

What have you been doing since Commencement?

I moved to North Carolina to start as a lab manager/research assistant in the Peifer Lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm working with a Post-Doctoral Fellow on his project about the scaffolding protein crk and its role in fruit fly development. Most recently I have been imaging developing nervous systems and the overlying epithelium in crk mutants on the confocal microscope. I also spend large portions of my week sorting through and caring for the flies themselves.

How did Knox help you get there?

Knox provided me with research opportunities both on and off campus where I developed my research skills and experienced a working lab before I came here (She interned the summer before her senior year at the University of Cincinnati on an independent research project as a part of a National Science Foundation-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates). A Knox professor, my advisor Judy Thorn, very directly helped me get here by connecting me with Dr. Mark Peifer.

At Knox, Emma was a member of the co-ed service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega and helped organize a Tri-sectional conference at Knox for the organization. She also did a term of Terpsichore and wishes she had done more!