From Adviser to Sounding Board

Laura Haynes ’05, postdoctoral associate at the University of Vermont

Major: Chemistry

Kate Queeney’s influential course: Materials Chemistry

How I ended up studying chemistry: “Kate was my randomly assigned premajor adviser. I took chemistry one semester and said, ‘I hate going to lab. Lab is the worst.’ Chemistry was my intended major, but I was in a bit of a panic over taking labs and hard sciences, so in that moment of self-doubt I considered anthropology. But when I went into her office for the next semester’s classes, she wouldn’t give me the registration code until I agreed to take organic chemistry. I think she saw that I liked chemistry—I was just scared of it.”

What bonded us: “I wanted to go to grad school, but I was worried about money. I was a first-generation undergrad, and I knew that I was going to have to also support my mother, who was sick. Kate gave me advice during the process of deciding which offer to accept, and I ended up going to the University of Colorado for a year and a half. But then my mother got sicker, and I dropped out and moved back to Vermont to take care of her. At one point, I drove back to Smith and chatted with Kate for a while because I was off the track I thought I was going to be on. I thought I had to make all the right decisions or I would ruin my entire life. I needed her to say, ‘It’s OK that you’re off course.’”

Guidance and reassurance: “I thought I was going to be this career-focused person, but I ended up taking some detours. Now that I’m planning to enter the job market in the next year or two, she’s pushing me to apply for things, helping me look for jobs.”

MENTOR: KATE QUEENEY 

Professor of Chemistry

Photograph by Jim Gipe

Chemistry professor Kate Queeney felt a kinship with Laura Haynes when she learned what Haynes was overcoming in order to be a star student. “At a young age, she had to deal with something that most people deal with when they’re older,” Queeney recalls. “I had a parent die early on in my career at Smith. I feel like Laura is an easier person to talk with than some of my friends who haven’t gone through something like this.” Haynes had left grad school to take care of her mother, who has multiple myeloma. Uncertain of her options, she sought advice from Queeney and ended up crying on the playroom floor, where Queeney’s kids were playing. In that vulnerable moment, Queeney admired Haynes’ strength and determination to uproot her life and change direction. “It is pretty incredible that she started getting her Ph.D. in physical chemistry and came home to Vermont and now has her Ph.D. in biochemistry, in what is a very different field.” Haynes intends to look for an academic position that allows her to have the same influence on students as her chem prof did on her. “Laura doesn’t need me to tell her she’s going to be OK anymore,” Queeney says. “She’ll talk to me about applying for jobs, choosing between jobs. She’s definitely doing this on her own, with me as a sounding board.”

This story appears in the Winter 2016-17 issue of the Smith Alumnae Quarterly.

Photograph by Jessica Scranton