ALUMNI profile
Movement Science
THE
OF
JAIME CHEAH ’95 | By Alla Katsnelson ’92
I
n the middle of Jaime Cheah’s laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on a hexagonal table, sits a yellow robotic arm. The device allows biologists to automatically move two-inchby-four-inch plastic plates containing hundreds to thousands of miniaturized experiments from instrument to instrument, through a complicated series of steps. It’s a powerful piece of machinery, the centerpiece of the technological armament Cheah oversees as the director of the High Throughput Sciences Facility at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. Her lab is a core facility, which means her primary job is not to conduct her own research but to help all kinds of MIT scientists—biologists, mostly, but also mechanical and chemical engineers, materials scientists, chemists and more—use the multimillion-dollar suite of automation and robotics tools to enhance and accelerate their research. The tools allow scientists to run massive numbers of tiny experiments at once—that’s the “high throughput” part—in order to screen chemicals that might treat a certain kind of cancer, for instance. “I get to figure out how to maneuver and manipulate the technology to help researchers answer any question they want,” Cheah says. “I love when people come in here with some wild and crazy idea, and they ask, ‘Can we make it happen?’ And I go, ‘Yep, we’re going to figure out how to make this happen.’”
“I love when people come in here with some wild and crazy idea, and they go, ‘Can we make it happen?’ And I go, ‘Yep, we’re going to figure out how to make this happen.’” 26 CM Summer 2020
Cheah had a strong interest in science even before high school, and she forged her passion for biology as a student at Commonwealth between 1991 and 1995. She came to Commonwealth from the Cambridge public schools with the help of A Better Chance, a program that helps students of color access scholarships to private schools. The transition wasn’t easy. For one thing, Cheah was two years younger than most incoming ninth graders; she started kindergarten at age four when her family lived in Guam, and she also skipped third grade. Although Cheah had always been a top-notch student, she found classes at Commonwealth to be much more intensive. “I distinctly remember in ninth grade English listening to Mr. Davis talk about ‘the tone in which an author speaks.’ Writing my first essay about Dickens’ tone, I was lost because it was so different from public school, which is like, ‘What happened in Chapter 3 of this book,’” she says. “It took me about a year to figure out what was expected of me.” One major grounding force as Cheah found her feet was dance with Jacqueline Curry, an activity she did for her full four years at Commonwealth. “It gave me a different level of discipline and an outlet for expression,” Cheah says. Almost three decades later, Curry, who retired from Commonwealth in 2019, warmly remembers Cheah as a talented and dedicated student. “What a beautiful young dancer she was,” Curry recalls. “Such a quick study—the minute I showed something, Jaime’s got it. And she was so quick to help others.” The student’s and teacher’s connection ran deep. A photo collage that Cheah put together of dance students from 1994–1995 still hangs in Curry’s study. “It’s beautiful, and it’s something I shall cherish all of my life,” Curry says. Curry knew well that all the hours Cheah spent in the dance studio provided her a way to embrace a more fluid mode of being than was prioritized in academic coursework. As a dancer, “you’ve got to take time to breathe, you have to harness your energy,” Curry says. “This is not biology; this is dance—you speak with your body.” Commonwealth’s science offerings back then were rigorous, yet somewhat basic. That didn’t faze her, Cheah says. For Project Week her first year, Cheah wanted to do something related to biology, but the school’s network wasn’t especially strong in the sciences at the time. Luckily, she lived in Kendall Square, a hotbed of MIT students. And she had a very forward mother. “My mom basically walked next door to our neighbor and was like, ‘You’re an MIT scientist, can my daughter come sit in your lab for a week?’” she says. Cheah loved the experience, and through her personal community lined up lab-based projects over the next three years. For Project Month her senior year, she worked in a Harvard Medical School lab
