Cuca Ramirez, C’24

Women’s and gender studies major, chemistry minor, pre-medical student, Canale intern, peer health educator

I’ve been thinking about who I was when I first got to Sewanee, how much I've grown, and how much I've changed. I always knew that I wanted to be a doctor, and I knew I enjoyed STEM classes. I grew up listening to P!nk, and of course, I became a feminist. And when I took courses in women’s and gender studies, I fell in love. It felt like I had found a missing part of myself. Reading about these ideas and having these conversations, it was like the room lit up. That's when I got the idea of becoming a women’s and gender studies major while also being a pre-med student. I want to be a doctor and an advocate for women and underrepresented people in the medical field.

I took organic chemistry and my advisor, Dr. Pongdee, was my lab instructor. He had space open up in his lab and asked if I was interested in being part of his research team. I was like, “Of course I am!” We are working on developing an anti-cancer, antibacterial agent. Typically, we run different chemical reactions in the lab. We read literature about the procedure, decide on the scale, set the conditions, and use nuclear magnetic resonance to determine the structure of molecules. Chemistry on paper is not the same as real-life chemistry. There’s a lot of trial-and-error when synthesizing the desired products. It’s complicated, but I wouldn’t be doing it year-round and during the summer if I wasn’t passionate about it. For me, the experience has been about more than just chemistry. I feel empowered to go out there and pursue things that are difficult or uncomfortable.

Something that brings me joy is expressing myself through clothing. I love fashion. Every day I get to choose what I want to wear and as long as I'm not breaking the safety guidelines in the lab, I can wear whatever I want. I know that I am accepted as I am. We talk a lot about women in STEM, but for me it's more complex in that I have different identities. I'm a first-generation college student, my parents are not fluent in English, and I'm Latina, among other factors. I think some people are surprised to see someone who looks like me in the lab and their notions of what a researcher is might be questioned–and I'm fine with that. Finding and creating the space to be myself has allowed me to support others as well. I always tell people, it doesn't matter if you think you're not good enough, I'm certain you are.