There is a year at ACPHS that Diandre (Dida) Slusarek (pictured above, left) credits for the growth she needed as a scientist to reach for a prestigious doctoral program.
Her research project seemed beyond her capacities, and her trusted mentor was available only through Zoom. But that mentor, Assistant Professor Dr. Anne McCabe (above, right), saw that Slusarek and lab partner Aysha Mills (above, center) had the capacity to handle the work largely on their own. It was Dr. McCabe’s confidence that spurred them to succeed and showed Slusarek what she was capable of.
Now Slusarek, a first-generation college student, is headed to Atlanta’s renowned Emory University to pursue her passions – immunology, host pathogenesis, the microbiome.
“I want to understand how we as humans live with diseases and live with these bacteria,” she said. “I feel like I haven’t learned enough yet to be in the science field.”
Yet she has come a long way toward her goal since her days at a large high school in Sarasota, Fla., where she was driven to prove herself. She comes from an immigrant family – her mother is from Slovakia and her father from Poland – and she’s trilingual. That put her in what she called the school’s “not smart enough” camp, relegated to classes in English as a second language and educational remediation. The result? “It definitely pushed me harder.”
By senior year, she was excelling in advanced science classes and had secured a pharmacy internship. She applied to pharmacy schools and chose ACPHS because of its strong national reputation, a solid financial-aid package and the close-knit community so many students extol.
She had a one-year postponement in getting to campus, as she worked remotely at State College of Florida on basic science and humanities classes in her first year, beginning in Fall 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. By the time she arrived as a transfer student in her sophomore year, she had learned from her pharmacy internship that pharmacy was not for her. At SCF, she also learned she liked biology more than chemistry.
Biology “was everything under a microscope; I had to identify everything,” she said. “That’s when I learned I am really good at this.”
She was still committed to ACPHS. But she switched gears to pursue a bachelor’s in microbiology and later a master’s in molecular biosciences, adding a minor in public health. It was rigorous coursework, and she has never regretted the decision.
Since then, her academic life has been virtually – and blissfully – all science, science, science.
“That’s what I also liked about ACPHS, that it was very science-heavy,” Slusarek said. “Everyone here is from different science backgrounds, and there’s just so many avenues you can follow.”
She asked about working in the lab at the end of Dr. McCabe’s first semester at ACPHS and has been working on the antibiotic resistance project since the beginning.
“Dida jumped into research at ACPHS with both feet,” Dr. McCabe said.
Now, for that academic year that accelerated what by then was already an upward trajectory. It was Spring 2024, and Dr. McCabe was on maternity leave. Checking in regularly via Zoom, she saw that Slusarek and Mills were ready to take charge of much of the work on their own.
Still, despite her mentor’s confidence, Slusarek said the challenge was daunting – even as driven and independent as she is.
“It was the hardest part of our research,” Slusarek said.
That research focuses on antibiotic-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae. For that semester's investigation, they had to conduct plasmid transformations and delete genes to analyze mutations.
“That was a very hard process – to figure out how to do this protocol, because it's not a typical protocol,” Slusarek said. But in the end, she said, her attitude was: “I like troubleshooting and, okay, let's figure this out.
“And Dr. McCabe was like, ‘okay, I think you guys are smart enough to do this on your own,” she continued. “That’s awesome and intimidating. But I have to say, that gave me an incredible feeling.”
That experience gave her the confidence to apply for an all-expenses-paid summer internship at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center. It was there that she studied the microbiome, the relationship between the gut and women’s reproductive organs, and developed a passion for research into women’s health.
That experience also honed Slusarek’s interest in an area of science where she wants to dig further – no longer pursuing a multitude of different avenues.
Slusarek is clearly much accomplished as a graduating master’s student -- far from her high school days of needing to prove herself.
Emory, in Georgia, will also be closer to family in Florida. The world she will be engaged in – academia – is one that her parents do not know. Yet Slusarek said she is bolstered by their support.
“They’re so proud of me,” she said. “My mom doesn’t even understand what I’m doing. And she just brags about it all the time.”