Freya Kailing ’25 Named 2024 Goldwater Scholar

Freya Kailing ’25, a biology major from Kalamazoo, Michigan, received a 2024 Goldwater Scholarship. Named after the late U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater, the prestigious award is given to second- and third-year college students planning to pursue research careers in the natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering. This summer, Kailing used the scholarship to continue research she’s been conducting on campus with associate professor of biology Aaron Goldman; in fact, she is credited as the co-author (along with Jules Lieberman '25, Joshua Wang '25, Joshua L. Turner '22 and Goldman) of a July 2024 Journal of Molecular Evolution article, “Evolution of Cellular Organization Along the First Branches of the Tree of Life.”

Tell us about the research you’ve done at Oberlin—and how it aligns with your career goals.
Last semester, I worked with professor Goldman and multiple other students on a project that investigated how cellular organization evolved between the time of the last universal common ancestor of all current life and the time of its descendants, the last common ancestor of bacteria and the last common ancestor of archaea. 

I did a lot of programming for this project, which allowed me to combine my interests in computer science and evolutionary biology. I also loved learning more about the long-ago organisms from which all living things on Earth are descended. 

Currently, I’m using digital simulations of evolution to study the evolution of traits which affect the speed at which genomes change and evolve. Based on my findings so far, and previous findings in professor Goldman’s lab, traits which increase the stability of the genome tend to increase in prevalence in a population in the absence of any selection pressures. 

My next steps include mathematically modeling this evolutionary trend and investigating how it changes when selection pressure is present. This sort of theoretical research interests me as a possible career, and I have appreciated the opportunity to design a lot of this project myself.

How have you grown and developed as a researcher from your time at Oberlin?
Transferring my programming skills from computer science classes to a biology research project has taught me a lot about independently solving problems that don’t have predefined solutions, as well as writing code that’s reusable and easy to understand. Working with professor Goldman to plan my current project was also a source of growth: it took a lot of reading, thinking, and discussing to be confident that my proposed digital simulations could give results that are relevant to evolution in actual organisms.

What’s the best advice you’ve received from your Oberlin faculty mentor?
My application to the Goldwater Scholarship included a research essay that could focus either on past research or on a proposal for future research, and I’m grateful to Dr. Goldman for encouraging me to put in the effort to plan out a future research project. (This is the project on the evolution of genome stability I’m now completing.) Developing the proposal helped me improve a lot as a scientific thinker, and I’m excited to be carrying it out now.  

What was the most rewarding thing about being a biology major at Oberlin?
I’m glad that Oberlin has the benefit of a liberal arts college in that the department is small enough that I can get to know many of my professors and classmates, but also a lot of research opportunities that one might not associate with a small college.

Activities in which you are involved at Oberlin: Treasurer for the Oberlin Student Theater Association; I’ve also acted in and done tech for multiple student shows. I’m also a member of OSCA, and I’ve been in Harkness Co-op since my second year.

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