Recruiting for a Microbiology Cult
Meet art and biology major Harper Lethin.
Hometown: New York City
Thesis advisers: Prof. Geraldine Ondrizek [art] and Prof. Jay Mellies [biology]
Thesis: “Enfolding Liveliness: Invoking Bacteriophage Therapy for More-Than-Human-Kinships”
What it’s about: My thesis used art and microbiology to investigate how using bacteria-killing viruses (phages) to treat human infections could inspire radical kinships between humans and microorganisms. I used research techniques to better understand phage-host relations and made a funky vest to reembody its wearer to include phages, connecting those practices with critical theory and anthropology.
What it’s really about: Do you want to join my microbiology cult?
Influential class: In Gerri Ondrizek [art]’s class Sculpture in the Expanded Field, I created artwork that activates the space around it. And Prof. Julia Michaels’ [biology] Restoration Ecology class inspired me to think critically about how humans can steward landscapes.
Groups or clubs: I spent the last four years improving my calligraphic abilities in the Scriptorium, which I put to use helping Gregory MacNaughton teach calligraphy and handwriting at local elementary schools. All while meeting weird alumni who brew beer or make brushes from roadkill fur.
Cool stuff: Square Ball, a square dancing ball with a live band and caller, is my pride and joy—I threw it three times! I also biked from Portland to San Francisco, sold my comics at the Zine Fest, and spent a lot of time at the KRRC radio station.
Influential book: Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio’s Remembering Our Intimacies: Mo’olelo, Aloha ‘Aina, and Ea.
In high school: The bowler hat kid, you know the type.
Challenges faced: Coming into Reed as a freshman in 2020 made developing relationships with the community and institution remarkably tough. Reconciling the kind, curious, and rascally spirit of the community with the increasingly suffocating realities of the institution has required dedication to seeking each other out.
Special projects: With the support of the Art Internship Award, I worked as a studio assistant for the organization Gather:Make:Shelter, which supports artists in Portland struggling with houselessness. I also spent a summer as a visiting researcher in the lab of Prof. Joan Steitz at Yale investigating structural RNA elements in transposons, which was supported by the Summer Opportunity Fellowship Award.
What’s next?: I’m working with the art professor Dr. Juniper Harrower as her studio/lab manager! Then probably a PhD in microbiology.
Tags: Academics, Students, Thesis, What is a Reedie?