My name is Curtis Carlson, and I graduated from UC Davis in 2018 with a BS in Global Disease Biology. My academic journey followed a long and winding path – a path that continues to be long and winding. After I graduated from high school, I spent four years at my local community college where I ping-ponged between majors (at one point I even considered going into automotive body repair!). In 2015, I transferred to UC Davis as a non-science major. Almost immediately, I decided once more to switch majors after perusing the academic catalogue and settled on Global Disease Biology because it had it all: an interesting core curriculum, the freedom and flexibility to explore electives, and an emphasis on undergraduate research. Towards the end of my junior year, I joined Dr. Steven Nadler’s laboratory in the Department of Entomology and Nematology where I completed my practicum titled “The phylogeography of Baylisascaris procyonis (racoon roundworm) in North America” that we later published in the Journal of Parasitology. The Nadler lab taught me many foundational skills in molecular biology and, more importantly, taught me what academic research is and how to do it well. My undergraduate research experience was a landmark moment for me and is something that I owe to the GDB major and its practicum requirement.

Following my graduation in 2018, I joined Dr. Bryce Falk’s laboratory in the Department of Plant Pathology as a Junior Specialist where I worked on citrus greening disease and insect-specific viruses. This was another landmark moment in my academic journey. The Falk lab greatly furthered my training as a molecular biologist and researcher for nearly 4 years and fostered my independence. I fell in love with doing research and working a job where every single day presented me with something new to learn. I left the Falk lab in 2022 after publishing my second first-author paper on genomic resources for citrus greening disease research in the journal DNA Research. Since research so strongly appealed to me, I decided to pursue a PhD in entomology here at UC Davis and joined Dr. Joanna Chiu’s lab in the fall of 2022. My thesis work has evolved and shifted away from entomology and into human health. I am now using the model organism Drosophila melanogaster to investigate the molecular mechanisms that underlie sleep disruptions in patients with Smith-Kingsmore Syndrome, a rare and debilitating neurodevelopmental disorder. In some ways, my winding academic journey has come full circle and brought me back to my undergraduate roots in GDB to study human diseases. One never knows where they may end up, but in retrospect we can often see the pivotal moments that shaped and steered us along. Majoring in GDB was that first pivotal moment, for me, and I am eternally grateful for where it has led me.