Amazing student: Chip Chambers

Known as the Mic Man, hyping up the crowd at home football games, biology (B.S.)  and economics (A.B.) double major Chip Chambers is also an honors student with his sights set on business and public health. We particularly enjoyed the section of his profile where he describes some of his favorite professors:

David Mustard taught principles of microeconomics my freshman year and sparked a love for economics that has continued to today. His engaging, humorous lecture style, with plenty of exciting real-world stories (including being a part of an FBI investigation into academic anti-trust allegations) made the class an absolute blast.

Fritz Schaefer, head of the Center for Computational and Quantum Chemistry, taught my FYOS on “C.S. Lewis: Science and Scientism,” and quickly became a close friend and mentor. We get coffee at least once a semester (when he’s not busy getting dinner with German Chancellor Angela Merkel) and he, the eighth-most-cited chemist in the world and Nobel prize nominee, always meets me at a location most convenient for me. I am fortunate to count him among my dearest friends.

Richard Morrison, who taught me two semesters of organic chemistry, also proved to be one of the best professors I’ve had. His energy and compassion for students are unparalleled, though those two classes pushed me harder than most anything else. I had to do a lot of soul-searching and growth during that sophomore year, but have Dr. Morrison to thank for that progress. The night of celebration with some of my best friends following the o chem 2 final (featuring jumping in Herty Fountain, ringing the Chapel bell, chicken tenders, and smoking cigars) remains one of my favorite college memories.

I am also indebted to Michael Terns, my research mentor in the biochemistry and molecular biology department for four semesters. He took me on as a first-semester freshman into the exciting, cutting-edge world of CRISPR-Cas research, teaching me what it means to pursue scientific knowledge and commitment to what the data says. Eventually, I was able to be published on a paper in Nucleic Acids Research, which would never have happened without the investment of Dr. Terns and the entire Terns lab team.

This is but one of the many advantages open to UGA students, to get to know - and work with - some of the best researchers and teachers anywhere. Creating opportunities and experiences that open up worlds of possibility and help our students unlock their potential, great faculty members are the giant oaks of the learning environment.

Image: Photo of Chip Chambers by Dorothy Kozlowski.