Better living through science

Charlie Morgan stood 10,000 feet above the sea, watching his breath freeze, and had a troubling thought: “I definitely didn’t pack enough warm clothes.” That was just one of many lessons he learned in Oaxaca, Mexico, where he spent a summer working with village leaders to reintroduce the native amaranth, an extremely nutritious grain, into the local diet.

The opportunity for experiences like this was one of the deciding factors that brought Charlie to Lewis & Clark. “I knew I was going to major in the sciences, but it was Lewis & Clark’s reputation as an outstanding school with a strong international flavor that attracted me to this campus,” says Charlie.

Last summer, rather than traveling the world, he spent his time focusing on the world up close. Charlie was selected from among numerous candidates to work in a biochemistry laboratory at Oregon Health & Science University.

Some day, he hopes to blend his chemistry, research, and international humanitarian work. “Being able to drink water from a faucet is something very foreign to most of the world,” he says. “I want to use my research experience, and hopefully a graduate degree in chemistry, to help people and developing communities in some other meaningful way.” Charlie is well on his way. Next fall he starts a doctoral program in chemical biology at the University of California at San Francisco.