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DECEMBER 2005

Distinguished Alumni:
Wen Chen: From Central China
to The College of New Rochelle

By Joan Baum, Ph.D.

There is nothing inconsistent in Wen Chen’s having double majored in chemistry and biology at the College of New Rochelle (CNR), an undergraduate institution known for its concentration on the liberal arts.  In fact, says this alumna of the class of `96, she attributes her “good fortune” as a science professional to her undergraduate days at the college. The scientific editor of Neuron, a prestigious peer-reviewed journal of research in neurobiology, Wen Chen has nothing but praise for her CNR teachers—her favorite was a nun who taught biochemistry—and she talks animatedly about the great support, academically and emotionally, that she had during her four years there. Without CNR, she says, she might not have made it to Harvard for graduate work. It could certainly not have been easy for a sheltered 18-year old from Wuhan, China, who knew only the basics of English, the King’s English at that, to make her way in The United States. She laughs softly, remembering how in a chem. lab during her first year she had asked her partner who was working with her “cooking up ingredients in an experiment,” to “turn up the hawt plate,” giving the word “hot” a British spin. She was “so embarrassed,” she recalls. But she was also focused on a field she found “fascinating.”

The only child of two science professionals, Wen Chen was in some sense born to pursue science—the top high school students in China go into science and engineering – but to hear Wen Chen talk about biology is to know that she loves her subject. Her father, who had been a visiting scholar in Arizona in the eighties and was “impressed” by the quality of scientific education in The United States, suggested she apply to an American college. In particular, he and her mother recommended that she look at undergraduate liberal arts institutions and schools where they felt she would be looked after and thrive in a safe environment: enter The College of New Rochelle, which in addition to fitting the bill, offered her a generous scholarship. Wen Chen says she had always been attracted to biology, particularly genetics, which she discovered in high school in China, but when she came to this country and discovered the link between scientific observation and mathematical underpinnings, she was hooked.  She decided on a double major and then interned at Memorial Sloan Kettering. Graduate study in neurobiology followed, centering on research into Rett’s Syndrome, a cognitive disease related to autism afflicting young children. She then went on, as a post-doc, to specialize in protein sequencing at MIT, and she studied for a year at Harvard Medical School, wanting to know how research was applied in clinical settings. 

As scientific editor at Neuron, a position she has occupied since last December, Wen Chen feels she has a wonderful opportunity to keep up with all the subspecialties in  neurobiology, also her husband’s field.  Because the journal reviews blind submissions, she has no way of knowing how many women are involved in scientific research, but she does say that when she was at Harvard and MIT, she saw fewer women than men at the higher levels and of those who made it, there were drop outs. She feels that historical and cultural biases against women need to be addressed, but she also notes that her editor-in-chief as well as many colleagues at Neuron are women. No doubt, she not only “really enjoyed” her college years at CNR but also found role models who encouraged her to pursue intellectual passions, no matter how competitive the field.#

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