At one time, Erin Rieke might have been hesitant to take risks,
glad to let someone else step up. Hard to tell now. The 22-year-
old senior in bioengineering from Tualatin, Oregon, has been
doing extraordinary things for an undergraduate: culturing
breast cancer cells, exposing them to controlled doses of
radiation, learning how to make nanoparticles that can circulate
in the body. She loves research, but the goal for this pre-med
student is to become a doctor. “First and foremost I want to be
a physician. I want to heal people. I love learning, but it’s
almost useless if you can’t apply it to helping people and
making advances in society,” she says. “That’s what drives me.”
Rieke has convinced others of her commitment, earning an OSU
Presidential Scholar award and a nationally competitive
Goldwater Scholarship. During two summers as a student in OSU’s
Howard Hughes Medical Institute program, she worked with
Christine Kelly, associate professor in chemical engineering, to
establish a new program of breast canc