Gillian Brown, a 2019 Todd County Central High graduate, has been interested in science for as long as she can remember.
From second grade onward, she remembers sneaking her science textbooks home for some light reading.
Now a PhD student at Texas A&M University, Brown conducts research on special viruses called bacteriophages.
According to Brown, this is a fairly new area of research, and she is one of the few involved. She was introduced to the subject in her junior and senior years of high school during her time at the Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science, a residential program on Western Kentucky University’s campus for gifted STEM students.
Brown’s journey from Todd County brought her to Western Kentucky University’s Mahurin Honors College, where she completed a 68-page thesis on her very own bacteriophage and graduated with degrees in chemistry and biology. She says her worldview continues to expand, especially now in her PhD program.
Brown is currently in her first year of a five-year PhD program where she studies microbiology, teaches biology to undergraduate students, and continues her bacteriophage research. However, this won’t be the end of her journey.
She says the public hears a lot of different information from scientists, which can sometimes cause people to feel overwhelmed or suspicious of those in the field. To Brown, there is one thing all scientists have in common: a great love for their communities.
While Brown may be far away from Elkton, she says she wants Todd County to know that scientists are not strangers — they come from small communities like hers and dedicate their lives to learning about the world in an attempt to give back to the people who helped raise them.
