Article by Riya Singh, 2025 High School Summer Fellow
From Directions to Discovery
School teaches us how to follow directions. My time at The Lundquist Institute (TLI) taught me how to think when there are none. Science doesn’t happen in perfect experiments; it happens in the messiness of trying, failing, thinking deeper, and trying again.
This summer, I joined the Ross-Desai Lab at TLI as one of the Institute’s High School Summer Fellows. I was expecting a defined path and predictable milestones, but what I stepped into was far less scripted. It was a journey shaped by unexpected challenges, sudden pivots, and constant recalibration. Navigating these waters meant learning to brave uncertainty with patience and purpose, unmooring from control to embrace the current.
Adapting to Change
My fellowship tested more than just my technical skills – it pushed me to adapt, stay calm, and keep moving forward, even when the path kept changing. The original plan was to study how palmitic acid affects leptin signaling in differentiated neurons. I dove headfirst into learning everything I could about leptin. However, delays in getting leptin into the lab caused us to switch to insulin. Then, timing constraints forced us to narrow the scope to studying just protein expression. Just weeks before the end of my fellowship, fructose entered the picture. Every time I started to find my footing, I had to pivot in a new direction. I could either follow the turn or get trapped by the comfort of my own expectations.
At first, I tried to anchor myself to something fixed – an idea, a plan, a timeline – anything that felt like solid ground in uncertain waters. I thought this would keep me safe and steady. The more I clung to these anchors, the more I realized that my attempts to control things didn’t just hold me in place, they chained me down, keeping me from moving forward. It took failure after failure for me to see this clearly. Because even when we had a flawless plan, the data didn’t care. Cells didn’t grow faster just because we were on a deadline. Experiments failed without warning. I kept trying to force things into perfect, straight lines, only to realize that progress in research doesn’t march up a staircase. Instead, it spirals. looping back, shifting directions, and constantly evolving.
Embracing this rhythm was the key to success. Throughout this summer journey, my mentors met every challenge with grace and adjusted timelines without drama. They also consistently made time to support fellows like me, being genuinely passionate about helping us grow. So, from the bottom of my heart, I’d like to thank Mina Desai, MSc, PhD, Michael G. Ross, MD, MPH, Guang Han, MD, Mayara Baqueiro, PhD, Jaqueline Hernandez, Siddhant Karmali, and Sanya Desai. Your patience and humility taught me that research isn’t just about answering the question you came in with. It’s about letting the process reshape the question itself and being okay with that.
I saw this lesson come to life when Mayara Baqueiro, PhD was reviewing her results and expressed feeling disappointed because her results were expected. In response, Guang Han, MD said something that will always stick with me: “That’s the nature of research. You search for something, you don’t find it, and then you search again, rethinking, redoing, and redirecting your path. That’s why it’s called ‘re-search.’”
Mayara Baqueiro, PhD’s words simple but striking words perfectly capture the essence of research, and that it’s a process of searching but not always finding. This truth is often lost in the rush for quick results and definitive answers, product of a misguided mindset that overlooks what makes research meaningful in the first place. I saw that succeeding in research requires more than perseverance or skill; it demands a deep, personal investment in what you are chasing. It is easy to give up when experiments fail or plans fall apart, but what drives you forward is not the promise of an answer, but the importance of the question itself. This unrelenting passion to ask questions is what fuels you during challenges, turning frustration into motivation and setbacks into new directions.
Lessons Beyond the Lab
Taking a step back, I came to understand that these lessons extend far beyond the lab. The same passion that drives a researcher forward, despite failed trials and disappointing outcomes, is the same kind that steadies us through the larger unpredictability of life. In both science and life, there is no fixed map or guaranteed result.
When waves of uncertainty toss us around, pushing back feels like fighting the sea itself. But by learning to ride their rhythm, we are carried to places we could never imagine and possibilities we never could have reached if we stayed tethered to control.
In those waves, it’s the people around us who pull us up from the chaos, when we’re gasping for air and our vision is blurred. When the currents threaten to drag us under, theirs are the hands that lift us up, letting us breathe and glimpse into the vast ocean waiting just beyond the struggle.
Embracing the Unknown
With the support of those around us, we find the courage to chart our course. At The Lundquist Institute, I learned that true resilience comes not from clinging to control, but from embracing the unknown. In doing so, I adapt, growing and creating paths where none existed before.
This experience showed me that progress is not a straight line, but a winding journey shaped by persistence, passion, and lessons learned. Each challenge taught me to loosen my grip on certainty and open myself to the possibilities that arise when we let go. It was in those moments of not knowing, when the path blurred and the future felt unstable, that I found the space to learn, adapt, and discover strength I didn’t realize I had. This shift transformed challenges into opportunities and setbacks into steps forward. The unknown became a landscape to explore rather than a barrier to overcome. Uncertainty invites us to shed rigid expectations and embrace the fluidity of progress. It calls on us to trust the process, lean on each other, and remain open to the evolving journey, knowing that growth often blooms in the spaces where certainty fades.
My time at The Lundquist Institute revolutionized the way I see the world. I am forever grateful for the waves that pushed me, the hands that lifted me, and the endless ocean of possibilities that lay ahead.