Hope Juntunen

I was born and raised in the tiny farming town of Hayti, South Dakota (population 381), and I am a first generation junior General Beadle Honors Program Scholar pursuing a double major in Physical Science (with a concentration in Chemistry) and Biology for Information Systems at Dakota State University. I have marveled at and questioned the natural world since I was a young girl. As I got older, I found that the only way I could obtain truly satisfying answers to my endless questions about how the world worked was through the formal study of science. And the more I learned, the more questions I had. So, I eventually concluded that a career in science was probably the right path for me. I am now trying to take my passions for scientific understanding to new heights by pursuing a dual Honors degree program, and immersing myself as deeply as I can in highly interdisciplinary scientific research at DSU. To further prepare myself for a PhD program, I spent this past summer working as an REU scholar at the Center for Chemical Evolution at The Georgia Institute of Technology, where I worked on cutting edge problems in prebiotic and pharmaceutical chemistry. My REU experience was so stimulating and gratifying that Georgia Tech now tops my list of prospective PhD programs. I will also give my first research paper at an international conference next month when I present some of my work at the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) World Congress/Annual North America Meeting in Orlando, Florida.

September 2016