Humans of LBCC

Emily Thompson 

“I come from Eugene, Oregon. I chose LBCC because I was originally interested in animal sciences, and I knew Linn Benton had a really good animal science program. I plan on transferring to the University of Oregon. My major is currently biology. I’m hoping to stick with it . . . it’s like my third major. I love logic puzzles, reading science fiction, and baking. In my free time I lead a young adult Catholic group in Eugene. After I get my degree I want to work mostly in microbiotics, microbiology, and genetics. I really, really want to work with the gene editing tool CRISPR. They’re working on all sorts of different things right now. They’re working on making mosquitoes that are incapable of passing on malaria. Well they’ve actually made those but they’re still trying to work out the kinks. Ideally I’d like to work with mosquitoes or pigs. They’re trying to get pig organs that can be used in human transplants, but there’s some different parts of the pig genome that would need to be removed because there’s actually ancient viruses encoded in the pig’s genome now that would cause problems in humans, so I’d like to work on that.”

Levi Hernandez

“I’m from Sweet Home, Oregon, but my parents come from Oaxaca, Mexico. My major is political science. I chose it because I like politics and want to know more about our government. I like politics a lot. They’re fascinating and I want to learn more about where we’re headed in the future. My favorite classes are government and introduction to politics. I’d say we need to make it so not one person can hold so much power and abuse it. We need to make the world a better place. My hobbies are researching what’s going on in the world right now, and I really enjoy playing soccer. I was captain of my high school’s varsity soccer team. I work at my sister’s restaurant, Casa de Reyes, in Sweet Home right now. The most influential person in my life is my dad, because he traveled across the world to start a new life. What drives me to be successful is the thought of being unsuccessful. In ten years I want to be traveling and making a positive impact on the world, something political.”