Student Spotlight: Katie Christison
In Episode 52 of Confluence, Bertha Morton winner, Katie Christison, shares about her journey to UM, women in STEM, and the benefits of exercise and dragon boat racing for breast cancer patients and survivors.
Story Transcript
CHUCK DUMKE: She has been involved in all aspects of academia, you know, you consider the scholarship, the service, the teaching and taking classes. She’s done research. In her two years, she’s got upwards of five or six published manuscripts. But one of the most impressive things is she goes out of her way to help. She’s hiking up the M and volunteering on the M trail. She’s volunteering to review questions for Student Bowl for our national organization, you know. That sort of breadth was what I thought makes an exemplary graduate student. It’s not just getting good grades and plugging away in the lab, it’s doing the extra stuff.
ASHBY KINCH: You just heard the voice of Dr. Chuck Dumke, professor of integrative physiology and athletic training, talking about his student, Katie Christison, one of the Bertha Morton graduate student scholarship winners for 2021-22!
Welcome to Confluence where great ideas flow together – the podcast of the graduate school of the Ñý¼§Ö±²¥. I'm Ashby Kinch, associate dean of the graduate school. This episode of Confluence is part of a series recognizing the achievements of some of our outstanding graduate Ñý¼§Ö±²¥. Named for a great Montanan who dedicated her life to public service, the Bertha Morton award was endowed to support graduate education by recognizing the distinctive contributions our graduate Ñý¼§Ö±²¥ make in research, creative activity, and public service.
Katie is a student in the doctoral interdisciplinary studies program focused on clinical exercise oncology in breast cancer patients. She stands out as a Bertha Morton awardee due to her strong sense of professional and community service and her outstanding academic performance, including a recent first-author peer-reviewed manuscript accepted in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine focused on wildland firefighter adaptations to training. We're proud to share her graduate journey with listeners. Enjoy the float!
KINCH: Thanks for joining us, Katie!
KATIE CHRISTISON: Hi, happy to be here.
KINCH: Yeah. Well, so first off, congratulations on winning the Bertha Morton. That's a fantastic award. Tell us what it means to you.
CHRISTISON: Oh, it’s, it's pretty twofold. You know, it's that research award where you kind of have that female empowerment, where it's a grant associated to the strong, powerful woman that I'm happy to be a woman that has received that and kind of continue the journey of research through, you know, the years as a woman researcher and as a woman in STEM.
KINCH: Yeah. Well, and then speaking of women in STEM, you know, your research has kind of shifted focus. You kind of came in working on wildland firefighter performance and that lab still continues to do that work, but you yourself are kind of shifting towards breast cancer oncology.
CHRISTISON: Yeah. It's a really exciting experience. We have started work with a group in town called Silver Linings Foundation. And they are a group of breast cancer survivors and breast cancer patients that have come together and have adopted this whole exercise is medicine persona or feeling…
KINCH: Approach…
CHRISTISON: Approach, thank you. And they have a dragon boat racing team, which if you've ever heard of dragon boat racing, it's like crew rowing but there's 20 to 22 people in a boat. It's this extravagant event that's becoming known worldwide. And we are starting to look at that dragon boat racing as a modality of exercise in these patients to look at the alterations and adaptations in their hormonal and metabolic function as well as some more, you know, typical body composition guidelines mainly to prevent the recurrence of cancer. To see how exercise can potentially benefit these individuals is in their breast cancer journey.
KINCH: Yeah, so on the, on the sort of research STEM side, you're looking for an outcome. But what I love about that story is how integrated it is on a number of levels. It's got a community application, you know, that the research is kind of going out in the community. But then it's also got this kind of competitive component and this group component. Can you say a little bit more, I mean, you are in the interdisciplinary studies program and so that's part of what attracts me to the project is it brings so many different things together.
CHRISTISON: Oh, it very much does. And I think that's what really brings me into it and why I really enjoy being a part of it is because you have the whole exercise physiology outcomes of exercise that is, you know, within my scope of research. But then you also have this group, this group of women that maybe wouldn't exercise on their own and need the community intervention to start this exercise and to continue feeling accomplished in this exercise. And then you have the practical component about a method of rehabilitation and kind of their path on their journey and exercise can be useful when they're dealing with breast cancer treatment and then 10, 20 years after remission. It's a broad scope of research that has really drawn me to that. That has so many practical applications, which I think is so enticing to me. It's not just more – basic science very much has its use – but I appreciate that I get to actually help these women and help future women in their journey and kind of their rehabilitation from these cancers.
KINCH: That's fantastic. And, and your own journey here is an interesting one. You did an M.S. here and then, you know, apply to come into the Ph.D. program. But tell us a little bit about what brought you to Montana?
CHRISTISON: I was all set to go to medical school. I had gotten into medical school. I was ready to go and I kind of had this crisis of conscience. Like, I don't think I want to go to medical school. So, I decided that I would take a chance and go get a master's instead and defer my medical school application and kind of just go experience the world a little bit. I was drawn to Montana because have you seen it here, it's gorgeous. So, on kind of a whim I decided that I was going to go get my Master’s of Science in Montana. And then...
KINCH: And, where were you coming from?
CHRISTISON: Boulder, Colorado. So, went to the University of Colorado.
KINCH: It’s ugly down there.
CHRISTISON: It's horrible. There's something about being in the mountains, you know, not on the foothills but within the mountains that's just special. But I came here on a whim, and I fell in love with it. I fell in love with the integrative physiology department. It was just such a good experience. And I had the opportunity to stay and get my Ph.D. and I kind of just had to jump on it. It was kind of one of those too good opportunities to pass up.
KINCH: Well, tell us more about that program because it is such a tight knit group of people and they do a lot of research together. And tell us particularly about your relationship with your mentor-advisor, Chuck Dumke. It’s such an important part of kind of graduate education in general is that advisor-mentee relationship.
CHRISTISON: Oh yeah. I came in, I remember, I came into my master's and was absolutely intimidated by him. He is the smartest man I've ever met. He's such a great teacher, and he's got, he has so much that he's involved in. He's very intimidating and very powerful and forceful. And you just, you know, that he is someone good to know. But I, you know, as my, as my master's went on, I found more of, you know, a close connection to him. And I respect him more than anyone probably else in this world. I think he's a truly phenomenal person and me and him just kind of worked really well together. And we had this great mentor-mentee relationship. And when I had the opportunity to come and do my Ph.D., I kind of had this whole, I'll only stay if Dr. Dumke is my advisor. He was one of the major contributors to why I stayed is to continue to be able to work under him. And it's been great. He and I get along great. He and I work really well together and can communicate really clearly together, and he's pushed me to do great things and I will always be appreciative of that and all the opportunities he continues to offer me.
KINCH: Wonderful. And so, as you kind of pivot into the heart of your dissertation, I know you're kind of just on the journey right now, you’re not very far. Are you looking down the path? I mean, are you thinking about where you're headed next? I mean, you sort of said you turned away from medical school to do this. Do you have a sense of what you want to do beyond the Ph.D.?
CHRISTISON: I have fell in love with teaching and research. And I think I want to continue being in kind of the academic environment, you know, find a university that I love, and I love the work they do and kind of have a mix of teaching and research components in there. But I've really found my passion in teaching. So, I would like to keep going teaching as much as possible.
KINCH: Well, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Confluence.
CHRISTISON: Yay, thanks. I'm happy to be here.
KINCH: If you enjoyed this episode of Confluence, subscribe to our podcast feed at Apple, Google, Spotify, or Stitcher. Make sure to rate, and review to support our enterprise of bringing you the voices of graduate education at the Ñý¼§Ö±²¥! See you on the next float.