Discovering their love for STEM: Clemson faculty talk about how they got into science

For some, it started with the question, "Why?" For others, it started with an early fascination with the natural world. And some loved the challenge of figuring out the puzzle.

In celebration of National STEM Day, we asked some College of Science faculty members to tell us their STEM origin stories.

Established in 2015, National STEM Day is celebrated every November 8 to encourage children to pursue STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers and to celebrate the importance of STEM education.

From volunteering at a clinic to a National Geographic subscription, here's how five Science faculty "fell in love" with STEM.

Alison Starr-Moss

Alison Starr-Moss, a principal lecturer in the Department of Genetics and Biochemistry, was fascinated by animals from a young age. Given the choice, she selected projects or books that focused on animals.

"I have always been interested in the 'Yes, but why?' answers. I loved science from a young age, being fascinated first by animals and later, by health and disease," Starr-Moss said.

She volunteered at a veterinary clinic in high school that saw companion animal, exotic, avian and pocket pets and fell in love with the variety of patient species, exams, analysis of clinical signs and the mission of improving or maintaining animal health.

While at Clemson studying animal and veterinary sciences, Starr-Moss also spent time working at an animal park that had exotics including tigers (that loved her) and cougars (that hated her). The park was interested in reproductive questions for primates. She asked her adviser at Clemson if she could create a research project, but they could not get permission to work on a project involving primates. Instead, she worked on a pig semen analysis project that was a "lightbulb moment" into asking scientific questions and learning what laboratory research was.

Starr-Moss received her Ph.D. in genetics from Texas A&M University with a research focus in canine genetics and genomics, which combined her interest in the clinical basis of disease with analytical thinking.

"Science gave objective explanations and created order in my environment, and I believe the order and logic from science is what appealed to me most at a young age," she said.

Shanna Estes

Shanna Estes's parents always asked her why- why did she want to do this or that? why did this or that thing happen? Her parents' questioning reinforced her natural curiosity.

"I always enjoyed learning and solving problems. My pursuit of science was a way for me to keep learning, and chemistry provided a way to bridge the molecular world with the macroscopic world so that I could see and predict specific scientific outcomes," said Estes, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry.

She participated in an elementary school program for scientifically minded children that involved advanced science, math and computer classes. It provided an outlet for her "problem-solving mind" and revealed that science is a continuous learning path.

Estes also conducted summer research as a high school student cloning small plants, extracting bovine DNA and learning about chaos theory. "It was fascinating and really helped to show me what scientists do, further cementing my desire to experiment and explore," she said.

While Estes planned to pursue science well before college, participating in undergraduate research solidified her path. For the first time, she was given her own project and asked to solve a specific analytical chemistry experiment. Estes knew then that a career in science spent thinking, learning and solving was for her.

Today, her research explores the behavior of heavy radioactive elements to better predict how an element's unique property and connectivity with other elements will drive specific reactions in environmental and engineered systems.

Alex Feltus

When he was a teenager, Alex Feltus used to read Scientific American cover to cover, regardless of the subject. He always loved and paid attention to the natural world and spent much of his childhood in Georgia and Alabama state parks.

After he pulled a biochemistry textbook off the shelf of the Fernbank Science Center library in Atlanta as a high school senior and saw a picture of a lipid bilayer, Feltus was hooked.

"Self-assembling molecules that form cells to create life? So cool," said Feltus, a professor in the Department of Genetics and Biochemistry.

He earned a B.S. in biochemistry from Auburn University because of that.

While a postdoctoral fellow at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, Feltus discovered bioinformatics. At that time, he had to teach himself programming out of necessity. "We needed some data analytics that didn't exist, so we created our own algorithms. That led to peer-reviewed publications and grant funds," he said.

Feltus uses his bioinformatics skills today as his research focuses on mining expansive DNA sequence data sets for genes that control certain traits in plants and animals. He has worked on linking extinct human DNA with autism, finding cancer genes and seeking to understand nutraceuticals - food-derived products that, when ingested, are meant to provide health benefits and improve function in the body.

In a full-circle moment, Feltus recently had his first paper published in Scientific American.

Paran Norton

Math was Paran Norton's favorite subject in school. "I thought it was fun and felt like I was figuring out a puzzle," she said.

While in elementary school, Norton took field trips to SciTrek, a former children's STEM museum in Atlanta. She also remembers playing a game, Hands-On Equations," which helped develop her conceptual understanding of algebra in a fun way.

"I think these hands-on, engaging opportunities impacted my love for STEM," said Norton, a senior lecturer in the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences.

It was her high school math teacher, Kay Dotson, who challenged her to strengthen and develop her subject knowledge and encouraged Norton to pursue math as a career.

While pursuing her undergraduate degree in mathematics at the University of North Georgia, she took statistics for the first time. Norton loved it so much that she did undergraduate research with a statistics professor. Her undergrad research led to her attending Clemson to pursue a master's degree in mathematical sciences. While in graduate school, Norton worked with Billy Bridges on applied statistics research and "enjoyed his enthusiasm for the subject."

After receiving her master's, Norton went on to earn her Ph.D. in engineering and science education at Clemson.

Casey Youngflesh

Casey Youngflesh, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, grew up in the outdoors, mainly in southwestern Colorado. His grandmother bought him a subscription to National Geographic as a child, which piqued his curiosity in scientific research. Youngflesh also spent much time in the mountains, reading books and watching documentaries about nature, which were the spark that set him on his eventual career path

He was fascinated with the world around him from a young age but truly learned what it meant to be a scientist many years later.

Youngflesh decided to pursue a B.S. in ecology and evolution at University of California Santa Cruz. He then received a master's of conservation biology from the University of New South Wales and a Ph.D. in ecology and evolution from Stony Brook University.

His research today draws from his childhood inspiration and focuses on using big data to understand how the natural world works and how it responds to global change.

"This could be anything from satellites to crowd-sourced information from millions of people across the world," Youngflesh said.

The big data collected by Youngflesh's lab could be used to determine which species or systems are vulnerable to changes in their habitat. His work has centered chiefly on birds and biodiversity so far, but Youngflesh is interested in many aspects of ecological systems.

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