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Working on the front lines to fight food-borne bacteria is all in a day's work for sophomore Jennifer Hillemann.

Jennifer Hillemann "shadowed" doctors on their rotations, observed major surgeries, and even volunteered with a local EMT team – all before she graduated from high school.

As a sophomore Biological Sciences major at Drexel, Jennifer already has more research experience than most students her age, and Drexel's reputation for research was a big selling point in her college selection. This year, at the urging of her professor and mentor, Dr. Shivanthi Anandan, Jennifer undertook a lab-intensive project with Drexel's STAR (Students Tackling Advanced Research) program.

"With the STAR program I worked with the USDA on methods of removing Listeria bacteria from Mexican cheeses in order to facilitate their importation into the United States," Jennifer explains. "My task for the project was to either inject the cheese with antibodies or rely on irradiation and calculate which methods worked the best to decrease the Listeria count.

"I really would rather be in a lab," she reflects. "Science is always changing. Every 20 years or so technology vastly improves, allowing exploration into fields once thought inaccessible. There’s always something new to jump into. And Philadelphia has so many hospitals in a relatively small area –– it's the perfect location."

When she's not logging lab time, Jennifer also makes time for Circle K (a campus service organization), the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, and Phi Eta Sigma (a national honors sorority).

But what about after graduation? Well, Jennifer has already set her sights on graduate school, hoping to focus on genetics or microbiology, with an eye toward helping eradicate disease. "I think most people want to do some kind of good if they can," she reflects. "If you have the opportunity to help another person live a better life, wouldn’t you take it?"