O’Day at her bench, Merkert Chemistry Center. Photograph: Gary Wayne Gilbert

Wearing a hooded sweatshirt, her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, and an oversized backpack slung from one shoulder, biochemistry major Liz O’Day ’06, of Braintree, Massachusetts, blends with the lunchtime crowd in Corcoran Commons as she discusses her recent dilemma: Should she accept a Churchill Scholarship that would give her a year of graduate study at Cambridge University, England, or a Fulbright fellowship to participate in research at the Institute of Science in Bangalore, India?

To win one such prestigious postgraduate award is impressive. To win two is rare, although another BC student faced the same choice a few years ago: Ari Shapiro, a biology major, turned down a Churchill Scholarship in 2001 in favor of a Fulbright grant to study seals in Scotland.

According to Professor Dennis Sardella (chemistry), the Churchill scholarships, awarded to U.S. science and engineering students by the American Winston Churchill Foundation, are among the most competitive of graduate fellowships. An average of 11 are given nationally each year, and only 75 top colleges and universities are permitted to nominate candidates. “I was really torn,” said O’Day in a recent interview, recounting how she reached her decision in favor of Cambridge. A crucial consideration was the work she will be able to pursue at the university on protein aggregates and how they relate to Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. “I want to cure cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s,” she said, with a laugh.

As a child, O’Day loved to “talk science” with a biologist uncle, who studied “the bioluminescence of fish and all sorts of crazy things,” she recalled. In first grade, she had an unforgettable lesson in the power of therapeutic drugs when her older brother Rob developed an aggressive form of nerve cancer and the family “took up residency” in Children’s Hospital for two years while he was successfully treated. “I’m sure that influenced me,” she said, explaining that she has always been more interested in the idea of creating drugs than the prospect of prescribing them as a doctor.

As an undergraduate, her research on synthesizing organic compounds with potential anticancer properties garnered accolades—a Goldwater Scholarship in 2005 (one of 320 awarded nationwide to student scientists, mathematicians, or engineers); a trip to Berlin under the auspices of the northeastern section of the American Chemical Society to present her findings; and a reputation in the lab of her advisor, Chemistry Professor Evan Kantrowitz, for being a tireless investigator. “I keep telling her I’m going to buy her a bed,” jokes graduate biochemist Sabrina Heng, who for the last year has worked alongside O’Day in Kantrowitz’s lab and witnessed the long hours she puts in. “She’s very hardworking, and she’s always smiling, even when she’s not feeling well,” said Heng, recalling the time when O’Day ignored a grumbling appendix in order to finish an experiment.

One person who is never surprised by O’Day’s achievements is her former chemistry teacher at Braintree High School, Kathleen Hart. In 37 years of teaching, says Hart, O’Day was one of her most impressive students. Recently, Hart has seen O’Day in a new role: as an educator herself. In the summer and fall of 2005, O’Day solicited funding and material support from corporations and University offices to organize the innovative “Women in Science and Technology” (WST) program at Boston College. She came up with the program, a monthlong series of Saturday seminars to bring high school girls into campus labs, show them “cutting-edge science,” and get them “engaged in the process,” she said, after giving motivational speeches at local high schools in spring 2005, and being shocked to hear many girls dismiss science as “boring” or “lame.”

With the help of faculty members Mary Roberts (chemistry), Clare O’Connor (biology), and Lynne O’Connell, director of BC’s undergraduate chemistry labs, the WST program was host in February to 30 girls from three schools—including Fontbonne Academy in Milton, where Hart now teaches. The students worked on experiments, visited BC’s Weston Observatory and the Genzyme Corporation in Framingham to explore scientific careers, and took part in a discussion of opportunities for women in science. They were mentored by 20 BC women science majors.

O’Day admitted that juggling WST and a round of visits to graduate schools on two coasts to flesh out her postgraduate plans made February a rough month. “But people step up and things work out,” she said. She will enter Harvard University’s Ph.D. program in chemical biology when she returns from England. The National Science Foundation recently awarded her a graduate research fellowship that will support three years of research-based study.

Small and compact, O’Day radiates positive force. For example, in 2004, when she ran in the Boston Marathon, she passed out from the heat and was rushed to a hospital; dismayed by her failure to finish, she completed the Bay State Marathon the following October. At BC, O’Day turned another sporting disappointment into triumph. To her disbelief, after a standout career in high school soccer, the University women’s team turned her down as a freshman on the grounds that she was too short and insufficiently aggressive. She decided to join the club rugby team, and showed up for practice one day with no idea of the rules. The first time he saw O’Day kick a ball, Coach Ken Daly wondered: “Where did she come from?” He soon found that as well as being an excellent kicker, O’Day was formidable on defense. Teammates dubbed her “the stone wall” as she helped them to an undefeated season in the fall of 2004.

As O’Day enjoys the final months of her senior year, she is preparing for the next phases of her scientific career. She will spend part of the summer honing her X-ray crystallography skills in Kantrowitz’s lab, and she has begun to formulate her Cambridge research project. Before she sets off for England, she plans to fit in a vacation. Her only dilemma, she says with a smile, will be whether to take her computer to the beach.

Jane Whitehead is a Boston-based writer.

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