Lilly Neugebauer learned to value conservation and the natural world due to her high school living environment class. Her early exposure to this material encouraged her to wonder about bioethics and the responsible sourcing of scientific discoveries. 

As a student, her interest in this field led to her involvement volunteering at the Albany Pine Bush, and her participation in the Jr. Docent Program and Summer Pond Monitoring, which she highly recommends. 

Neugebauer said she was also influenced by Mr. Goldberg’s college- level lab environment and his way to prepare and unleash student potential. This allowed her to prepare for her major in Genetics & Chemistry.

“Now I can only dream of sitting in a lecture that captures that kind of fun. His energy is one in a million,” she says.

Neugebauer is now a Research Technician at The Neural Stem Cell Institute in Rensselaer, a job where she tests drugs and vectorizes intrabody treatments on diseased stem cells. She cultivates cells, amplifies viruses to infect them, and experiments to determine if there is any way to help them get back to being healthy. Testing at this stage helps determine whether treatments are safe for full clinical trials. This also helps to level the field in medical and pharmacy for smaller enterprises by giving objective analysis. 

Neugebauer really enjoys her job, as she is also able to present the research she and her coworkers have completed to other school campuses. She notes that her work is actively working to reduce plastic use. When there’s no affordable substitute for plastic,  they try to reuse as much as they can and seek products with replaceable inserts, avoiding larger single-use items that get discarded entirely. 

Her job has given her the opportunity to use her skills that were nurtured in high school. Neugebauer says that high school taught her numerous valuable skills such as conflict management, setting boundaries, prioritizing mental health, and a lot of practical lab techniques. 

“High school demands expertise in multitasking and rapid learning, all while your eyes are opening to the very flawed, very real adult world,” she says.

The desire to make life more fair gave her a sense of purpose. In high school, she became driven to achieve seemingly unachievable goals—”call it rebellion for a better future”, she says.

“Beyond classes, the most valuable thing it gave me was a newfound philosophy,” she said. 

She is using this philosophy to help change the world, one experiment at a time. 

About the author:

Bader is a senior in CCHS. Planning to attend college to pursue a career in medicine, her favorite classes include Molecular Biology, Chemistry, and Biology. She enjoys skydiving, parachuting, and traveling. She hopes to start a business in the near future.