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Alessa Colaianni '07

"Whatever I end up doing, it will be something that I find exciting and fulfilling. Duke has helped me to realize that there really are no limits to that."

Alessa Colaianni San Juan, Puerto Rico Double Major: Biology and Philosophy

It's hard to predict what Alessa Colaianni might be up to.

She could be working in a faculty member's biology lab or playing the piano or performing in a sketch comedy group or acting in a play.

Although the Duke senior is not certain where her career may wind up, "whatever I end up doing, it will be something that I find exciting and fulfilling. Duke has helped me to realize that there really are no limits to that."

Colaianni almost didn't come to Duke. After transferring as a junior from her high school in Puerto Rico to Andover Academy in Massachusetts, Duke was not her top college choice. But at the urging of her mother, Sara Welsh, a 1972 graduate, Colaianni decided to challenge her bias against the South and apply.

Still vacillating at decision time, she flipped a coin. It didn't come up for Duke. "I went, ‘Oh, damn.'" So, clearer that her gut was telling her to go to Duke, a spring visit to Duke's "beautiful campus pretty much sealed the deal." Her sister, Gabriela '09, arrived two years later.

Colaianni is a double major in biology and philosophy. She is strongly interested in researching and writing about the junction of the sciences and the humanities. She had the chance to do both this past summer as a Department of Homeland Security Scholar. She participated in a 10-week internship at Lawrence Livermore Labs in California. Eight weeks were spent in intense research, focusing on procurement and funding for research and the development of vaccines against anthrax, and two weeks writing up her results.

 

Her findings were mirrored by a New York Times article in September, including the conclusion that Project BioShield isn't working.

 

"Project BioShield is a federal initiative to try to help the lack of vaccine research and development by contracting out to pharmaceutical firms. It hasn't had its intended effect at all," she says. On the brighter side, she notes that recent developments could lead to a "pipeline of DNA-based vaccines reaching more people much more quickly."

 

Her Duke research has allowed her to study DNA in other ways. She was a Howard Hughes Research Fellow and worked as part of that program for eight weeks in a cell and developmental biology laboratory. And she did independent studies on the history of, and intellectual property issues related to, the development of recombinant DNA and co-transformation. Her work there was guided by Robert Cook-Deegan, director of the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy's Center for Genome Ethics, Law, and Policy.

And she has studied the history and philosophy of science, including in a graduate seminar last spring with philosophy professor Alex Rosenberg and history professor Seymour Mauskopf. 

Her Duke influences also include Anthony Kelley, professor of music, her pre-major adviser and the faculty-in-residence at her first-year dormitory on East Campus. "He was wonderful and let me jam on his piano.

"When I told him I wanted to declare biology instead of English or theater, he sat me down and talked me through that choice for an hour. He really wanted to make sure that I wasn't making that choice prematurely or incorrectly."

She also is intrigued by the possibility of acting or doing stand-up comedy. She is a four-year member of Inside Joke, a sketch comedy group, and has acted in a number of plays, three of which were student-written.

"I came to Duke specifically thinking medicine. Law has only recently come into the picture as a result of this intellectual property research. Mostly Duke has helped me to realize that these are not the only options, paths or careers that are interesting, fulfilling and possible for a Duke grad."