Danella taking advantage of opportunities, one trip at a time

Posted 8/31/17

Cranston West graduate Erika Danella and her siblings grew up with a mantra handed down by their mother, an immigrant from Cambodia who escaped the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime.

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Danella taking advantage of opportunities, one trip at a time

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By JACOB MARROCCO

Cranston West graduate Erika Danella and her siblings grew up with a mantra handed down by their mother, an immigrant from Cambodia who escaped the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime.

“Do what makes you happy in life, but take advantage of whatever you can,” Danella said. “She didn’t have those opportunities, so that’s always been in the back of my mind with whatever I do.”

She has lived by that credo through her anthropological and bioarcheological explorations.

The soon-to-be-junior at Quinnipiac went on a National Science Foundation research experience for undergraduates (REU) expedition to the United Arab Emirates this winter to examine bronze age tombs that were more than 4,000 years old.

Then, in the summer, she did another through the University of Georgia during which she ventured to Italy and Sicily to do some work at an archeological site aimed at learning more about ancient Greece, namely oral health and male and female interactions.

It hasn’t been a bad year for Danella, who is currently going for pre-dental as a biology major and anthropology minor. However, she left high school wanting to pursue a career as a doctor, so it could still be subject to change down the line.

“When I graduated I said, ‘I’m going to be a doctor, this is what I’m going to do,’” Danella said. “One of the things you have to build up on your resume when you’re applying to med school is research. So that’s what inspired me in the first place, but then I started to really enjoy the research process in general and anthropology I really enjoyed because it combines the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities.”

Her penchant for research became immediately obvious when she began dissecting fruitflies during her freshmen year at college. She said that, since the insects share quite a bit of DNA with humans, their musculature can be used to examine proteins that can be helpful in further studies on ALS and multiple sclerosis.

She had an article published in the Journal of Visual Experiments this summer detailing some of her work.

Her predilection for research only grew from there.

“I didn’t know you could use hard sciences to write historians you can confirm, one of the aims of the projects I did in Italy was they were trying to confirm things that Herodotus and Greek historians have written, so it’s really fascinating,” she said. “You can correct misconceptions about the past and that’s what keeps me going in anthropology.”

As far as inspiration to get involved in the sciences in general, it traces back to her mother, who works as an accountant for the state. Danella is very in touch with her Cambodian heritage, and the country is atop her bucket list for places she would like to go for a project.

She plans on heading to Hungary next summer for another REU, and she has spoken with friends about planning a future excursion to Australia, New Zealand and southeast Asia.

“Finding the money to do it is kind of hard, especially with their government right now but there are projects trying to jump start the excavating of the Killing Fields,” Danella said of a prospective exploration of Cambodia. “There are definitely a lot of bodies still not found from the Khmer Rouge and that would be interesting personally to do. That’s another why I’d like to go to grad school and pursue a project involving that.”

Grad school options for Danella include Ohio State, the University of Arizona and the University of Michigan, where some of the foremost minds in anthropology do their work.

While that field is her main focus, she also expressed interest in advocating STEM jobs for women. She said that while women have closed the gap on men in terms of numbers in certain fields, the pay gap remains a chasm.

Research backs her up, too. According to a 2014 study by the Association of American Medical Colleges, women accounted for nearly half of medical school applicants, graduates and residents in 2013-14.

Studies from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed female physicians and surgeons earned 62 cents to every $1 in 2014, while the number for medical scientists that year was 78 cents to the dollar.

“Women are getting paid a lot less than men and minorities are under-represented,” Danella said. “It’s kind of fascinating when you look at anthropology because women are starting to take over that field and take the majority and anthropology is a relatively newish field. REUs are trying to reach out to people that are under-represented in these fields so that they now can have more opportunities to grow within them.”

Her advice to female students who want to go into STEM fields? Don’t be intimidated.

“STEM is seen as this big scary thing, but as long as you study hard and have a genuine interest in it you can go for into it no matter what people tell you or how outnumbered you feel,” Danella said.

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