BLOSSOMING CAREER: Princeton University biochemistry postdoctoral researcher Melanie McReynolds has been selected as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Hanna Gray Fellow, with an award of up to $1.4M in funding for her research on aging. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky)

By Donald Gilpin

She came from rural Mississippi to a special Bridges to the Doctorate Program and a PhD at Penn State University, then a postdoctoral research position in biochemistry at Princeton University, but Melanie McReynolds is not resting on her laurels. Last week, she added to her achievements with an award of $1.4 M in funding over the next eight years from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

McReynolds was named one of just 15 postdocs across the United States who was selected by HHMI as a Hanna Gray Fellow, gaining “the freedom to follow her curiosity, and the support of the vast community of HHMI scientists, a stellar group that includes the world’s leading biomedical researchers,” according to the HHMI announcement.

“Fellows will be supported from early postdoctoral training through several years of a tenure-track faculty position,” the HHMI stated, noting that the program “seeks to encourage talented early career scientists who have the potential to become leaders in academic research.” The announcement continues, “In particular, this program aims to recruit and retain emerging scientists who are from gender, racial, ethnic, and other groups underrepresented in the life sciences, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

Throughout the challenging transitions and impressive accomplishments that have characterized her life so far, McReynolds has sustained certain consistent themes: hard work, bringing people together, and science.

Young Scientist

“At age 5 I knew I wanted to be a scientist,” she said. “My grandmother and my parents often asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I always said a scientist. I got a little microscope from my mom for Christmas when I was 7 or 8 and I took it everywhere. I’ve always been intrigued and infatuated with science. I took every science class offered, and I was really good in math too.”

Both of her parents went to Alcorn State University, a historically black Mississippi college, and were high school vocational arts teachers — her mother in home economics, her father in agriculture. When Melanie, an only child, was in 10th grade, she looked through the Alcorn catalogue and decided what her next step would be. “By 11th grade I knew I wanted to be a biochemistry major.”

In the summer following her sophomore year at Alcorn, McReynolds experienced ”one of the changing moments of my career” when she was chosen as one of ten top Alcorn scholars to participate in a research trip to Bangalore, India. “That was the first time I did biomedical research. I was exposed to real research. I had my own project, and I got my feet wet,” she said.

The leader of the summer trip was head of the Alcorn biology department and also one of the directors of the Alcorn-Penn State Bridges to the Doctorate Program. “He saw something in me,” she said, “and a lot of the students who went to India were the same students who went on from Alcorn to Penn State for PhDs.”

In addition to her extensive work in biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State, focusing on the field of cellular metabolism that eventually brought her to Princeton in July 2017, McReynolds was also a leader outside the classroom and the lab. “I had my hand in a lot of different buckets at Penn State,” she said.

Bringing People Together

As president of a graduate student organization working with the deans and others to create an inclusive community, McReynolds received the 2017 Way Paver Award for her “extraordinary commitment to diversity and the creation of an inclusive community;” for enhancing “student life and the climate throughout the local community;” and for motivating others “through [her] leadership and impeccable character.”

McReynolds described how her fellow graduate students had come from all over the world, but in many classes and other settings there were few students of color. “I wanted to bring everyone together, so students didn’t feel they were alone. The PhD program is supposed to be a lonely program, and sometimes it’s better when you have people from the same background or from the same part of the country come together, to get help from others, build connections, network, so people don’t feel alone.”

Emphasizing the challenges of keeping students in the program to complete their degrees, McReynolds continued, “With retention, retaining students in the program, if you’re there by yourself it’s easier to quit. If you’re there with other people you make a pact, and we make sure we all finish. Also with a community it’s easier to recruit more students of color, or more students in general. The best students want to go where there’s a more inclusive community for everyone. That’s something I wanted to build at Penn State.”

This past summer at Princeton McReynolds was one of the main postdoc teachers in the summer research program in molecular biology, working with students from a wide range of different backgrounds. “I want to give back to the community in important ways. I worked with students from different backgrounds and helped to bring them together. And that’s something I love doing.”

McReynolds has ambitious plans for pursuing those interests in the future, along with her high-level research work. “I want to create my own bridges program, my own internship program, because if it weren’t for that type of program I wouldn’t be here. You never know who you may touch or who you may encourage to do more,” she said.

Groundbreaking Research

Currently pursuing research in Joshua Rabinowitz’s cellular metabolism laboratory at Princeton, McReynolds is trying to understand what happens to metabolism during aging and how to combat deficiencies in metabolic systems that contribute to aging.

“She’s doing groundbreaking, fundamental research, addressing one of the issues that worries all of us,” said Rabinowitz. “She’s a very committed and dynamic scientist — an engaging speaker who makes science captivating. This grant will allow her to pursue vigorously this work in the lab with me and to launch her own work.”

Reflecting on the prospects for her future career, McReynolds noted, “The sky’s the limit now. The funds that this grant provides will allow me to be creative to pursue the outstanding science that I want to pursue and it gives me the flexibility, the safety net, to fail and ultimately to succeed.”

McReynolds looks forward to being “an example and a voice for the generations coming behind me, so that people see Melanie was able to do this. She’s from Mississippi. She went to a small, historically black college, and she was able to make it. I can encourage others so they will be able to make it too as long as they believe in themselves and have the faith to go out and do it.”