finding the beauty in culture and community

From growing up in Traverse City to becoming a biologist, Central alum Callie Chappell reflects on their experiences

by Lucy Poppleton content editor

Callie Chappell ‘13 recently achieved a Ph.D. in Biology from Stanford University, bringing together their joint passions of science and art that Chappell has loved ever since they were a young child growing up in Traverse City. An alum of Central High School (CHS), Chappell was a star debater, robotics team member, choir vocalist, and participant in the musical theater program. “I loved [going to Central] and was part of the Sci-MaTech program there,” Chappell declares. Chappell even had some of the same teachers we as students still have today, such as Ms. Shelley-Barnes.

Chappell was born in China but came to the United States after being adopted by American parents. “At the time I was adopted, [my parents] were living in New Hampshire, but I grew up in Traverse City, [where I’ve lived] since I was about three,” describes Chappell. Though their parents are white, Chappell is Chinese, providing them with a uniquely diverse experience growing up in a mostly white area such as Traverse City. Chappell attended Woodland School (then known as Traverse Bay Community School) for almost all of kindergarten through eighth grade and then transferred to CHS for high school. Chappell finds that their experience was different from the typical minority experience. “When I was growing up in Traverse City, I [didn’t] feel like I had a lot of racial awareness….It wasn’t until when I went to some music camps…and that I started getting involved in debate that I really started having interactions with people of different ethnic backgrounds,” outlines Chappell. “That was really transformative for me in understanding my own racial experience in Traverse City. Particularly because I was adopted, I wasn’t getting that kind of cultural context that was consistent with how people coded me racially.” However, Chappell also notes that the racial landscape in Traverse City even

20 years ago is nowhere near what it is like now and that “while many conversations about race assume that race is a biological category, it is actually a social one,” Chappell asserts.

For their undergraduate years, despite not feeling like they had a great understanding of East Asian culture, Chappell attended the University of Michigan and had a great time. “I was very involved in the Central High School debate team, and they also had a really good debate team, so I debated there for a couple of years as well,” mentions Chappell. It wasn’t until Chappell moved to California, attending Stanford University to achieve a Ph.D., that they started to experience more of Asian American culture. Since then, Chappell has continued to learn about rich Chinese culture while celebrating the just as rich culture they gained growing up in beautiful Traverse City. “I have had people around me, Asian Americans and Asian immigrants, who’ve been close friends and mentors of mine. [They have] been very generous about sharing elements of East Asian culture with me that I’ve been able to learn, but just like anyone, the process of understanding one’s racial identity is a lifelong learning process,” reflects Chappell. “It’s been this fine balance for me of celebrating and embracing the cultural…upbringing that I’ve had, while at the same time also celebrating the opportunity to learn more about a culture that was not accessible to me but is still part of my own lived, racialized experience as an Asian American.”

While exploring their place in their own community, Chappell also studies the roles of animals within their communities. “Growing up and being an Asian American in Traverse City, I really had to be aware of the ways in which different people understood who I was…and I started to understand that we as people are embedded in a broader social context and a broader cultural context. That’s our community,” observes Chappell. “And, at the same time, in Traverse City, we have so many beautiful elements of the outdoors. I also started to see how the plants and the animals and the lake and the insects and all the organisms also are deeply embedded in their own communit[ies]....This parallel awareness about how ecological communities change over time and the factors that influence them as well as human communities’ change over time got me really interested in trying to understand both.” Chappell studied biology at the University of Michigan, thinking about climate change’s impact on communities while also considering different aspects of human identity in human communities, especially with scientists. Chappell also continued this study at Stanford and through today, “not just asking fundamental questions about the world but [also] asking how we ask those questions…by looking at the intersection of ecological communities and human communities and culture.”

Furthermore, another one of Chappell’s areas of passion is art. “I was always drawing sketches in my notebooks and making all of my class projects really artistic, and I always was trying to combine my interests…into my academic work or my schoolwork,” describes Chappell. “Those beautiful notes that I took when I was in high school ended up translating into sketch[ing] notes…professionally where I go to scientific talks and…I do sketches of research talks and then share them out online for people to learn more about science.” Similarly, Chappell has used skills learned in art classes when they were younger, such as noticing detail in nature, and translated that to their work in science, being curious while looking at the world around them. Today, Chappell works with middle and high school students to help them explore their own cultural knowledge through the intersection of science and art. “I do a lot of work collaborating with [predominantly Latino] youth thinking about how we can amplify their own culture and creativity, their own knowledge of land, and how they can see that…as a form of science,” Chappell beams.

For those of us who live in Traverse City, Chappell is “excited to hear that folks in Traverse City are thinking about race, and I hope that folks can bring compassion and curiosity to the conversations about race and diversity in Traverse City because everyone deserves compassion and care,” explains Chappell. “Everyone deserves to be in a home—not necessarily like a house—but [to] have a place that feels like home where they can feel respected.” //