About My Watson Fellowship

New Zealand, Japan, Norway, Austria, Chile, and Argentina

Your Watson project is your foot in the door of another culture. This project should be something you are passionate about to facilitate a conversation with a complete stranger from another culture and thus promote a deeper connection. While I am a scientist, I am also very passionate about skiing like many other people around the world. Accordingly, a 15 minute conversation on a chilly chairlift ride up could easily transition from a conversation to a day of skiing together to a lifelong friendship.  The amorphous nature of a Watson fellowship forces the fellow to develop an internal compass for pursuing knowledge; you will constantly question if you are learning and if not then you should move on.

These skills have proven very valuable in the biological sciences, where I am a PhD level stem cell biologist studying the devastating neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.