By Louise Schultze, Marketing & Outreach Specialist
For Class of 2013 alum Rebecca Gellman, Stanford Online High School set the course for her academic journey. Largely inspired by her advanced Biology classes taught by Dr. Kim Failor, Rebecca has defended her thesis to earn a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Microbiology and Immunology.
Her thesis on the gut microbiome investigated how the bacteria in our bodies respond to environmental and diet changes. This topic was first introduced to her during her time in Dr. Failor’s AP Biology class in 2011, and influenced her to pursue advanced research on the topic.
“I was really excited when I learned about what Rebecca was doing her thesis on because I also have a personal interest in the microbiome,” said Dr. Failor. “Rebecca told me years later that she first heard about the microbiome at the end of my AP Bio class in 2011. That year, when we were done preparing for the exam, we still had a couple weeks left of class, so I introduced the microbiome to get the students excited about something new. For Rebecca to come back to that topic after all these years, and to see how she pieced everything together with her research was incredible.”
Previously homeschooled by her parents so she could attend rigorous ballet classes, Rebecca joined Stanford OHS in 2009 as one of only 26 full-time students. At Stanford OHS, she found a tight-knit cohort who still have an active group text chat to this day, and regularly get together to celebrate life’s big moments.
Since the school was much smaller then, Dr. Failor had Rebecca as a student for four classes over three years, including a biology lab class together in-person at Summer@Stanford.
“Rebecca helped make the classroom a community,” Dr. Failor said. “This cohort was really great friends who helped build that early foundation for community and connection in an online classroom. She was a really strong Stanford OHS student who was heavily invested in ballet at the time, and she did a great job balancing all that and staying on top of her academics. That was indicative of what we were trying to do as a school at the time, and showed how well it can work.”
Through the years, Rebecca and Dr. Failor have stayed in touch, getting together for coffee to hear about Rebecca’s latest lab rotation, and the possibilities in front of her.
“Dr. Failor was one of the most influential teachers in my life. Going into her class, I knew I liked Biology, but she presented it in a way that people would ask really good questions and have great discussions. She taught me how to read and search for scientific literature, how to read a paper, and how to navigate that world, which was very important and useful when I went to college,” Rebecca said.
Rebecca attended Columbia University in New York, where she earned a B.A. degree in Neuroscience and Behavior, while remaining active in ballet and dance. She still credits Stanford OHS for having the most intense statistics class she’s taken, and that’s saying something since she’s taken a lot!
“Stanford OHS was a really wonderful academic environment for me,” she said. “It helped me to be self-motivated, and to do things because you’re interested in them. In such small classes, you have to go after the things you’re learning about because you, yourself are interested. I really benefited from being around students who were as smart and enthusiastic about learning as I was.”
Rebecca’s enthusiasm for learning endures, and this Fall she will make the move from Menlo Park, Calif. to Chicago, Illinois, where she will work on a post-doc studying microbiology at the University of Chicago. She hopes to follow the academic track and become a professor someday. When asked if she’d return to Stanford OHS as an instructor one day, she said “never say never!”
This summer has been especially busy for Rebecca as the day after defending her thesis, she married her partner of three years in a small ceremony in the Los Altos Redwood Grove. They first met during June of 2020 on Bumble - in the thick of Covid-19 - and experienced their first dates on Zoom. Perhaps her time at an online school also prepared her for online dating! She also recently attended the wedding of two other Stanford OHS alums, Gavin West and Pallas Catenella, who were married in Italy this June.
“Rebecca has had a lot of people in life inspiring her, but it was great to see her thank Stanford OHS, and Dr. Hoshi and me during her thesis defense,” Dr. Failor said. “She shared some photos of her friends from Stanford OHS meeting up recently, and it was so special to see that the community that got built during that time is still together and supporting each other.”
Congratulations Dr. Gellman!