Gabrielle Ferra (left), UW Genomics Associate Professor Kelley Harris (center), and Genomics Department Chair Maitreya Dunham:“Gabby impressed me right away during her rotation in the lab," Dunham said.
“To get somewhere new, we may have to leave somewhere else behind."
Fred Rogers
Mister Rogers likely was directing those words at young children, not a then-17-year-old high school junior in Sarasota, Florida. The “somewhere else behind” for Gabrielle Ferra was a career as a concert violinist, a goal she had been pursuing for 11 years.
Ferra’s “somewhere new” was applying her natural affinity for math to genome science.
“I love music and especially the violin, but the expectation to practice four-plus hours a day was sucking all fun out of it,” said Ferra, who will graduate from the University of Washington in June with a Ph.D. in Genome Sciences. “This was not the way I wanted to sustain myself for the rest of my life. With that decision, violin became fun again.”
The “fun” of science started in her high school chemistry class. It was the first time Ferra was “super intrigued” by a subject other than music.
“I really liked applying math to science, and understanding things at a molecular level,” she said. “I like to parse out problems and understand them as well as I can. For first the time, I was really doing that.”
It’s quite apparent that Ferra, 28, will be parsing out scientific problems for decades to come.
In August of 2016, she entered Brown University and took a population genetics class. She said it was “essentially a study of math and probability” in which she analyzed how populations change over time.
“This was the first time I really started learning about genetics,” Ferra said. “I was building a foundation for what would become my honors thesis.”
Not surprising, she graduated in May of 2020 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Mathematics – Biology with honors, magna cum laude, and phi beta kappa.
One of her two faculty advisors at the UW recognizes – and appreciates – Ferra’s interest in math and science.
“Before applying to grad school in biology, Gabby distinguished herself as a math major at Brown,” said Associate Professor Kelley Harris, Ph.D. “As a former math major myself, I love seeing the problem-solving energy they bring to biology when they decide to make the switch.”
For Ferra, transitioning from undergrad to graduate school was easy. The UW, she said, has “one of the best genetics programs in the world,” but, equally important, is its work-life balance.
“I had very good impressions from the grad students I met at the UW that I did not get at some other institutions,” she said. “The science was strong, but they all had personal lives, and did other things they love. Plus, I fell in love with Seattle.”
That love and those “good impressions” were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ferra started the Ph.D. program in the Department of Genome Sciences in September of 2020. By the end of that month, there were 7.1 million people in the U.S. infected with the virus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It was quite an experience entering graduate school at this time,” she said. “I’m a real ‘people person,’ and it was hard to be motivated with having all your classes online.”
Over the next four years, Ferra distinguished herself in several ways, including:
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Contributing to the development of a barcode–variant mapping tool for long-read sequencing, benchmarking performance, and optimizing parameters to reduce sequencing artifacts and improve variant quantification; and
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Integrating large-scale sequencing datasets to characterize 5,000-plus genetic variants, combining experimental results with statistical modeling to interpret functional effects.
Ferra’s other faculty advisor, Maitreya Dunham, Ph.D., Chair of Genome Sciences, saw the young scientist’s potential.
“Gabby impressed me right away during her rotation in the lab, where she dived right in doing experiments,” Dunham said. “She was really able to dig in to her deep mutational scanning dataset. She got deep into the details, while keeping her eyes on the bigger picture too.”
For Ferra, that “bigger picture” of her future may not be evident with her impending graduation, but her enthusiasm for pursuing a career in genomics and helping patients cannot be doubted.
“The path ahead may not always be clear,” she said. “I’m looking at research and development positions in translational biotechnology firms, but you typically need experience in electronic health records and federal HIPAA regulations. So, I am exploring clincal post-doc opportunities. Whatever happens, I know a big part of my future will be engaging with people.”
Harris is convinced Ferra will succeed in whatever aspect of genome sciences she serves.
“During grad school, Gabby discovered that she really wants to make a tangible impact on patients' lives someday, and I look forward to seeing how this desire helps her focus her energy on important applications of genomics,” Harris said.
