Rosa Negash '20
I have been able to learn so much from my time here. It was definitely cool to see true science in the making.
Real-world experience. That’s what Rosa Negash got when she put her Ohio University education into practice. “I have been able to learn so much from my time here. It was definitely cool to see true science in the making.”
But how did the senior nutrition major get to that point?
Rewind to spring 2015, when a quick and easy tour of Ohio University’s Paleontology Labs turned into a life-changing experience. Rosa was in her junior year at Athens High School and wanted to get some research lab exposure to prepare for her future aspiration of studying biology in college.
She remembers seeing a crocodile head, a few other fossils, and talking with Dr. Nancy Stevens, professor of functional morphology and vertebrate paleontology in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, about the lab’s work.
To Rosa’s surprise, at the end of the tour Dr. Stevens asked her, “So, when do you want to get started?”
“I thought cool, I guess next week,” Rosa said.
As a volunteer lab assistant, Rosa learned how to use the basic lab tools and got comfortable with how fossils look and feel. The position solidified her decision to attend Ohio University as a biology major.
Biology didn’t stick, though, and Rosa changed majors after her first year.
“When I switched to nutrition, I knew that I was finding a program that academically was more fitting to me,” she said. “I also started having outside conversations about how environment intersected with nutrition and land usage, agriculture, feeding people and food security, and how conservation efforts are often coinciding with new agriculture practices.”
But that didn’t mean Rosa left her research interests behind. Her new major provided opportunities for research and fieldwork in conjunction with classwork, and she was still working as a lab assistant for Dr. Stevens. Rosa also co-presented a research project OHIO’s annual Student Research and Creative Activity Expo.
According to Rosa, most college students are looking for an experiential learning experience because it connects their schoolwork with the real world.
She has good cause to know. During the summer of 2017, Rosa experienced her first fieldwork for two and a half weeks at the Utah Geological Survey. She dug for dinosaur bones in a rock quarry with two paleontologists who are colleagues of Dr. Stevens.
Then, in the summer of 2019, she traveled to Tanzania for three and half weeks with Dr. Stevens’ research team to do some excavation work in the East African Rift. “It was cool to see researchers working in a space that they dedicate so much of their life to.”
The excavation trip wasn’t Rosa’s first time being in Africa. She moved to the U.S. when she was 7 years old. She lived her first three years in Utrecht, Netherlands, the native country of her mother, and her next four years in Asmara, Eritrea, the native country of her father, an OHIO professor.
After graduation, Rosa plans to use her nutrition expertise to help people overcome chronic illnesses that are diet-related. She’ll keep her research skills sharp, too.
“It takes lots of creativity and planning to make lifestyle changes that benefit people’s health. It’s cool to know that we’re working actively to help people with health issues.”