Office of Undergraduate Research Director: Dr. Rizalia Klausmeyer Ph.D.

Dr. Rizalia Klausmeyer Ph.D.

Dr. Klausmeyer was a lecturer here at Baylor from 2000 until 2008 and then a senior lecturer from 2008 until 2013. Associate Director of the Office of Prehealth Studies and Program Director of the Earle Hall Science and Health LLC from 2013-2018. Current Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research where she instructs and directs the students who are currently in the Science Research Fellows Programs.

Q. I am here meeting with Dr. Rizalia Klausmeyer, the Director of Science Research Fellows and Director of Undergraduate Research. Can you please tell me about yourself?

A. I was born a long time ago in Puerto Rico, which is a Commonwealth of the United States. It was a regular family. I went to the University of Puerto Rico for my bachelor’s and I got a bachelor’s in chemistry, which I finished in 1991. Right away I came to Texas A&M in College Station in order to get a PhD. in Chemistry. After the PhD., I did what they call a postdoc, but mine was in industry. It was an industrial post-doc because I wanted to actually work for a company and that one was in Deer Park, Houston. So I worked for Roman House, Texas, which is, by the way, the biggest producer of sulfuric acid in the world. They also have a lot of cyanide in there and I used to work with cyanide. Right after I finished that, I got married to Kevin Klausmeyer, who is a professor here and together we went to the University of Illinois in Schempp, Urbana-Champaign. He was doing a postdoc there.

I found a job as Director of the General Chemistry Labs there. I had about sixteen hundred students. It was a rotation of two weeks so that everybody would actually get to the lab. They also allowed me to teach the class, too. That is when I discovered that I am good at teaching. It was a much more unusual thing, but it was fun to be there. It was too cold though. After that, my husband, Kevin, got a job here at Baylor as a professor. I was supposed to be a stay at home mom but staying at home is a lot of work. It is easier to actually go to work than to stay at home with kids. So what happened was that as soon as we moved to Waco, one of the lecturers got sick and she was going to be out for two to three weeks and Kevin said, my wife, has been teaching that so she can come and teach and take over. But the lady never came back. So I have been teaching ever since. So I have been teaching at Baylor since 2000. Normally my easiest class to teach, the one that I have to prepare the least is Organic Chemistry because that is what I like. But right now, I am teaching our General Chemistry, which is kind of fun.

Q. Recently you were once upon a time working in the Pre-Health Office and now that you transitioned into Science Research Fellows, can you describe what it was like to work in the Pre-Health Office meeting with students and then how you have been able to transition those skills you attained over there now into Science Research Fellows and being a director of that?

A. That's a long story, but it is a good story because I was teaching four sections over organic chemistry and I could not remember the names of two thirds of them. I do not think that is a good thing to actually teach a person when you do not know their name or anything. So, I decided to actually just stop teaching for a while and that is when the position for Associate Director of the Pre-Health Office opened up. But as I was the Associate Director of the PreHealth Office, I was also the Program Director of Earle Hall, which is the Science and Health LLC.

So that was the biggest change that I have ever had in my life because I went from actually just teaching, just basically an academic job, to Earle Hall where you had to plan parties and plan dinners. As the program director that was my job. And I did not know how to plan anything. I had to learn how to order food. I had to learn to do all the different things required. For example, if a toilet got stuck in the office part, I had to actually call. It was a really big learning curve.

I also had responsibilities in the Pre-Health Office. Whatever Dr. Richard Sanker, Senior Director of the Office of Pre-Health, did not need to do, I was there to actually do it. That is how I ended up meeting all the students, helping with the committee interviews, and doing the presentations for students that are coming in. So, it was not that long, it was about a year into the job and Dr. Sanker comes in and hands me a proposal. He said, this is a proposal and we have been trying to pass it for a really long time. It is for the Science Research Fellows, but it has not passed, and we want you to actually fix it. So I fixed it. The first classes started in the Fall of 2017, so the program had been approved in the Spring of 2016. I had to start promoting and advertising, which is another thing I do not know how to do.

After promoting and advertising, in the Fall of 2017, we had our first class of Science Research Fellows and the research fellows is a different type. It is a Bachelors in Science Research Fellows, but it is a little different from any other Bachelor’s degree because the students actually come with the idea that yes, I am going to be in a lab and after that I am going to go and have a research career. I am going to get a Ph.D., or I am going to get an M.D.-Ph.D. So that was the basic idea behind them, that we would help them get into a lab. I like to call it an informed decision, so that when they join a lab, they know exactly what they are getting into. They have done the research, the background search about what that lab is all about, and they are sure that that is where they want to be. But I do not stop right there, I keep after them.

Have you thought about applying for these summer research programs? Have you thought about applying for a Fulbright? We have a lot of big national and international scholarships. Students should actually know that they should come to this office, which is now the Office of Engaged Learning, to look for those types of opportunities. We only take like ten students a year and right now, it is our third year. We have not graduated the students who are in the program yet. I am not going to say that it is a great program, but it is pretty good. It has been working well. I am in charge of the Research Fellows meaning Dr. [Richard] Sanker has been giving me more and more responsibility with the summer internships that the Pre-Health Office has.

After a couple of years of doing that, then the Dean of the College of Arts and Science decided that since other Universities have an Office of Undergraduate Research, we should also have that. They decided that since I actually have the Research Fellows, took care of all the different internships, and at that time we had our first year of BTRUE (Baylor Transdisciplinary Research Undergraduate Experience) program as well, which Dr. Dwayne Simmons came up with it because he had done it before, they decided that I would be the person to actually take care of the Office of Undergraduate Research.

Q. I understand that the Science Research Fellows program is really small right now with about 20 or 30 students…

A. We have around twenty-seven students. We have lost some because they wanted to change majors. After the first year, they realized that they do not want to do research. That is a good thing, that you do not go into a lab and then just say, “Oh, I do not like this.”

Q. What advice would you recommend for students of color who may be looking to get a master’s and/or a Ph.D. in research? What would you recommend to them, students here and students outside of Baylor, to look into whenever they are looking into Science Research Fellows, and planning on applying for this major and getting all the benefits that it presents.

A. To not be afraid to apply and to do it. In the application, we want you to write essays, short essays. You do not have to actually write a novel. But what I am looking for in the essay is to see that desire to do research and to keep going with your career. Even if a student does not get into the Science Research Fellows program, find a mentor. Find a mentor that you kind of connect with and that you feel comfortable with, because that person can help you figure out what you want to do. You guys are young. I know that you think that a lot, but there are so many things out there that students do not know, especially since you come from a high school, you do not know what we have at a University level. So see if you can find a mentor among the faculty that you feel comfortable with and that you actually are going to and talking with them frequently. It does not need to be every day, but maybe once a month. Just go in and talk about how your life is going and everything.

If you do not find a mentor, come to me and I will be happy to help mentor students, because that is what I like to do. The best part about this job is that I still get to interact with the students. That was also a part that I learned a lot at Earle Hall, that being among students is kind of fun. It is different. So find a mentor and make sure that you ask as many questions as possible. Also do not just assume that it is difficult to do something. Just give it a try.

Q. Now moving forward, I am aware that you have been a part of programs on Baylor’s campus that promote diversity and also promote equality between genders, especially in the fields of STEM. Can you tell me a little bit more about those, their names, and what they stand for and the things you're doing within those organizations?

A. Of course! So once I was the Associate Director of the Pre-Health Office, since I was at Earle Hall, I felt a little isolated. Back then, this was 2013, there were not as many females as we have now. We have actually improved quite a lot. I thought that I would actually just start a brown bag lunch group where we would talk about what is happening in the different departments.

We called it the Women in Science and Engineering group or W.I.S.E for short. So that was a faculty group and again, it was just simple. Once in a while, we invited the presidents. They came during that period that we had several proposals. It was a nice time of just camaraderie and just helping each other like, “oh, I have been through that. This is what you need to do.” So it was good. And then I was approached by two graduate students and they say, well, we want to take part of the women in science and engineering.

We want to do that, but we want to do it a little different. We want to create the graduate student speaker series because we want to showcase the work that the female graduate students are doing. And that is easy to do. I mean, that requires reserving a room and advertising. And let me tell you, at that time, I was good at advertising. I learned at Earl Hall, so I was good at that. We started that, and we have been doing it for three years now. And every month during the academic year, we have a graduate student present. And it has been amazing. It has been really a great experience for them. And it is also a good experience for me because I just see them and they are so young, and they are so good at presenting and the science they do is impressive.

Then, since I was at the Science and Health L.L.C., I wanted to start a student organization that was for science and health students. So I proposed that to two of my students and I do not know what happened. They decided that they were going to do AMWA, the American Medical Women's Association. We have women and they are going to be doctors, so we are just going to want them together. And that way we can actually just focus on topics that affect the women when they are going to medical school or any other health profession.

But if you do one for women, then you should do one for Latinos. So I was approached. This was not my idea. I was approached by two students and they said, we want to actually create a group for Latino pre-health students. And I will help because I think that is good. That way, again, the women face different problems than the Latinos. So we started the Latino Pre-Health Student Association, El Paso, and that has been growing and growing and growing and now we want to do it.

Then another student approached me to another group. It was to be the start of a group that will focus on the problems of black students when they are starting as a pre-health and their future. I am backing that up because that is also needed. I know that maps are multicultural, but it has sometimes nice to just focus on a specific group and help them separately because again, the problems of Latinos are not the same problems of the Black students and they are not the same problems that just women go through. So that is how I am trying to work to help my diverse students. I do not know if it is working, but so far, I think it is.

Q. For W.I.S.E, where can students and faculty find these monthly seminars?

A. It is actually a seminar that we announce on the Facebook and Instagram of women in science and engineering. It is usually the last Tuesday of the month at 3:30 to 4:30 in C206. We have been in that same room for two years now and we always do it. We tried to announce it. Again, we are not advertising executives, but we try to. We emailed the faculty and we emailed the graduate students for that one.

Q. Is there anything else you would like to add?

A. I just wanted to add one more thing. If you are a first-year pre-health student. The classes are going to be harder. You just have to put a little more effort into it. I know that some other majors have more freedom and they can party more, but you are in this for the long game. So again, just make sure that you learn your time management and that you get enough time to study and just a little bit of time for socializing and partying. But right now, your studies are the most important thing because you are actually just trying to get ready for life after Baylor. If you do not do a good job here, then we may not actually be able to send you to the next stop, but it is doable. You do not have to do this by yourself. There are people out there willing to help. If there is anything that I have learned, it is that pre-health students do not just want to help the sick, they help each other a lot too. They try to support each other as much as possible.

Final Regards: Dr. Rizalia Klausmeyer

Dr. K provides current and future students hope to begin seeing through the power of these words that the path to a successful start in research within bioscience is achievable here at Baylor and that the professors running these departments are people of color who are open to everyone. The Science Research Fellows is certainly a program that prospective students should look into if they are passionate about a career in methodical scientific research and working with a Principal Investigator in disciplines such as Neuroscience, Biology, and Chemistry to name a few. This program is also ideal for students who are looking to earn a Ph.D. in a particular area of scientific discipline.