Distinguished Alumni:
Wen Chen: From
Central China
to The College of New Rochelle
By Joan Baum,
Ph.D.
There
is nothing inconsistent in Wen Chen’s having double
majored in chemistry and biology at the College of New Rochelle
(CNR), an undergraduate institution known for its concentration
on the liberal arts. In
fact, says this alumna of the class of `96, she attributes
her “good fortune” as a science professional to
her undergraduate days at the college. The scientific editor
of Neuron, a prestigious
peer-reviewed journal of research in neurobiology, Wen Chen
has nothing but praise for her CNR teachers—her favorite
was a nun who taught biochemistry—and she talks animatedly
about the great support, academically and emotionally, that
she had during her four years there. Without CNR, she says,
she might not have made it to Harvard for graduate work. It
could certainly not have been easy for a sheltered 18-year
old from Wuhan, China, who knew only the basics of English,
the King’s English at that, to make her way in The United
States. She laughs softly, remembering how in a chem. lab during
her first year she had asked her partner who was working with
her “cooking up ingredients in an experiment,” to “turn
up the hawt plate,” giving the word “hot” a
British spin. She was “so embarrassed,” she recalls.
But she was also focused on a field she found “fascinating.”
The
only child of two science professionals, Wen Chen was in
some sense born to pursue science—the top high school students in China
go into science and engineering – but to hear Wen Chen
talk about biology is to know that she loves her subject. Her
father, who had been a visiting scholar in Arizona in the eighties
and was “impressed” by the quality of scientific
education in The United States, suggested she apply to an American
college. In particular, he and her mother recommended that
she look at undergraduate liberal arts institutions and schools
where they felt she would be looked after and thrive in a safe
environment: enter The College of New Rochelle, which in addition
to fitting the bill, offered her a generous scholarship. Wen
Chen says she had always been attracted to biology, particularly
genetics, which she discovered in high school in China, but
when she came to this country and discovered the link between
scientific observation and mathematical underpinnings, she
was hooked. She
decided on a double major and then interned at Memorial Sloan
Kettering. Graduate study in neurobiology followed, centering
on research into Rett’s Syndrome, a cognitive disease
related to autism afflicting young children. She then went
on, as a post-doc, to specialize in protein sequencing at MIT,
and she studied for a year at Harvard Medical School, wanting
to know how research was applied in clinical settings.
As scientific editor at Neuron, a position she has occupied since last December, Wen Chen feels she has
a wonderful opportunity to keep up with all the subspecialties
in neurobiology, also her husband’s
field. Because
the journal reviews blind submissions, she has no way of
knowing how many women are involved in scientific research,
but she does say that when she was at Harvard and MIT, she
saw fewer women than men at the higher levels and of those
who made it, there were drop outs. She feels that historical
and cultural biases against women need to be addressed, but
she also notes that her editor-in-chief as well as many colleagues
at Neuron are
women. No doubt, she not only “really enjoyed” her
college years at CNR but also found role models who encouraged
her to pursue intellectual passions, no matter how competitive
the field.#
