Profile: Rachel Waymack
Meet Rachel Waymack
Q & A Session with the Prince George High School Class of 2012 Graduate
Were you involved in any extracurriculars while a student at Prince George High School?
At Prince George High School, the extracurricular I spent the bulk of my time with was The Royal News (TRN), the school newspaper. I was on the newspaper staff all three years at the high school and it was one of the highlights of my time at PGHS. I served as the news editor my junior year and the Double Truck (the inner 2 page spread in the middle of the paper) editor my senior year.
At Prince George High School, the extracurricular I spent the bulk of my time with was The Royal News (TRN), the school newspaper. I was on the newspaper staff all three years at the high school and it was one of the highlights of my time at PGHS. I served as the news editor my junior year and the Double Truck (the inner 2 page spread in the middle of the paper) editor my senior year.
I also was a member of the National Honor Society, Beta Club, and Spanish Club.
Where did your journey take you after graduating high school & where are you in life now?
After high school, I went to the College of William and Mary, where I majored in Neuroscience with a minor in Biochemistry. I initially declared as a chemistry major, but I really enjoyed the two semesters of required Introductory Biology and wanted to pursue this more. William and Mary did not offer a Biochemistry major, so I ended up majoring in Neuroscience because the required courses were essentially chemistry and biology classes, with some interesting psychology and neurobiology courses mixed in.
During the summer after my junior year, I was lucky enough to be selected to participate in a National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates held at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. Here, I got to do hands-on research in the lab, and I was hooked. That following fall semester, I spent writing (with lots more re-writing) and going broke applying for Ph.D. programs. I was accepted into the Cellular and Molecular Biosciences program at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). So come the end of the summer after graduating from college, I packed up my car and drove across the country to Irvine.
At UCI, I first learned that I really did not have a good sense of what to actually expect from a Ph.D. program. But I stuck with it, and thanks in no small part to help and support from faculty and new friends at UCI as well as friends and family back home, I made it through to the other side with my doctorate. I studied under the mentorship of Dr. Zeba Wunderlich, where I researched how certain regions of DNA control gene expression critical for embryonic development. I defended my thesis in early June (2021) and received my Ph.D. in Developmental and Cell Biology.
During my Ph.D. I worked primarily with fruit flies (another thing I learned at grad school – fruit flies are a very commonly used organism for genetic research), but moving forward, I am now shifting my focus to plants. I accepted an ORISE fellowship (a really cool program done through the Department of Energy that offers research fellowships to students at different levels from undergraduates and beyond that doesn’t seem to get the publicity it deserves) with the USDA in Albany, CA, to work on wheat genetics. In my new position, I will be working to identify genes important for wheat to be able to survive and grow in stressful conditions, such as drought or high/low temperatures. I am really excited to start up this new job next month!
When you reflect on your time as a student, is there a teacher or staff member who made a lasting impact on you?
A lot of really great teachers made a big impact on me during my time in the Prince George public school system, especially at the high school. I mentioned before that I served all three years on the newspaper staff, so through that and 11th grade English I had the pleasure of working with Mr. Waugaman a lot. Mr. Waugaman was a great mentor who had a knack for convincing students they were capable of big and great things and then helping them to prove him right. Mrs. Andersen is another teacher who stands out in my mind as someone who made a lasting impact on me. I always felt challenged but also supported in her classroom – there was never a doubt in my mind that she saw me and all of her students as full, individual people who she believed in and wanted to succeed in her class and well beyond. Mr. York, Ms. Thornton, Ms. Hasley, and Mr. Darby (and others, the list would be too long) are others whose lessons in and out of the classroom have stuck with me to this day. What stands out most to me about these teachers is not so much what they taught me about the rule of thirds, the three branches of government, or partial derivates (though those do still come in handy), but the fact that they seemed to take a genuine interest in their students.
It felt like they saw in you the potential to be something great that made you want to live up to that potential.
Finally, what is your message to the next generation of Prince George High School graduates who have and soon will be embarking on the next step of their life's journey?
My advice is to not limit yourself. The secret is that no one really has it all figured out or knows exactly what they’re doing. Take what you have learned and experienced with you out into the world and use it as the jumping stone to the next lesson or experience. The world we’ve inherited is ours to save or abandon, so go out there and do what brings you joy and fulfillment and do what you can to help and support those around you (don’t forget to care for and support yourself). We’re all capable of much bigger things than we usually give ourselves credit for, but we all also are dependent on one another.
Go out there and make the world that much better for everyone.