My whole career has been about being out there in the community and bringing a love of science, medicine, animals, and biology to people in the community.
Welcome Dr. Megan Rokop
New assistant dean for community engagement and outreach at Cummings School
A scheduling mishap changed the course of Dr. Megan Rokop's life.
"I landed in a biology class by a scheduling accident, and that's when I realized I liked biology. If I had not landed in that class by accident, I would not have found the field that I love," says Rokop, originally a German and Italian languages major at Brown University.
That fortuitous mistake charted a new path for Rokop that would land her next at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she earned her Ph.D. and stayed on as an instructor in MIT's Biology Department. She later ran community outreach programs for the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard and was the founding associate dean of the Honors College at the University of Massachusetts Boston. And now the path has led to Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, as the new assistant dean for community engagement and outreach.
"I am driven by getting young people interested in life sciences and health fields, working to ensure that educational opportunities are skills-based and hands-on, and that the people who work in the life and health sciences are representative of our state, our country, and our world," says Rokop. "All those things came together for me here at Tufts. And I'm also an avid animal lover."
Rokop's career is marked by launching new programs and initiatives tied to educating and supporting students in the sciences. Before switching her major at Brown to biology, she studied languages, an interest stemming from her father, who fled Hungary during the revolution and lived in a number of countries before settling in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Rokop spent much of her childhood in Pittsburgh, including time living on a farm with her grandparents. She also lived for a few years in a town in rural England, home to her mother and stepfather's family.
"My family worked in the steel mill industry; I didn't know anyone who did biology," she says. "I ended up becoming a microbiologist. Growing up, I did not know what microbiology was."
Rokop worked in a laboratory at Brown, researching early stages of developmental biology in the African clawed frog. From that experience studying unfertilized frog eggs, she became fascinated by single cells and microbiology.
"Microbes are single cells, but they live in communities and talk to each other," she says. "They're always sending and receiving signals, measuring how many of their species are out there, how many other species are out there, how much nutrition is in the environment. Then they all make decisions as a group, such as to grow and divide or stay dormant. I became interested in this notion of single cells knowing things, and that's how I ended up in microbiology."
After Brown, Rokop started up her Ph.D. in biology at MIT, preparing for a career teaching the subject she loves at the collegiate level. She rotated through three MIT laboratories, including one focused on a bacterial species commonly found in soil. She chose to join that lab for her thesis on single-cell bacteria making complex regulatory decisions. While completing her doctoral degree, she was a teacher's assistant in undergraduate classes and completed the MIT-Wellesley Teacher Certification program, student teaching in an AP Biology class at a nearby high school.
"That's when I realized I like anything that has to do with biology education. During my career, I've gone back and forth between teaching different ages of folks, always in a university setting," she says.
Upon receiving her Ph.D., Rokop was hired as an instructor in the Department of Biology at MIT. After three years, she transitioned into a new role as director of educational outreach for the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard, a nonprofit research organization led by scientists from the Human Genome Project. She launched a community laboratory for K-12 students. More than 1,000 local students visited the lab for field trips annually, and high school students conducted semester-long research projects and summer internships in the lab. Rokop ran the program for seven years.
"My whole career has been about being out there in the community and bringing a love of science, medicine, animals, and biology to people in the community," she says.
The University of Massachusetts Boston tapped Rokop as associate dean of their new Honors College when it formed 12 years ago.
"Hands-on learning makes people excited about science," she says of the experience. "I also loved the fact that everyone did a senior thesis project, because for me, my senior thesis was when I learned what it means to be a scientist."
Before joining Cummings School, Rokop mentored Tufts' post-doctoral training grant recipients teaching in the Honors College at UMass Boston. "I'd been collaborating with Tufts for over 10 years, so I already knew I loved Tufts."
Rokop reflects on the opportunity to take on this new position at Cummings School, "I was very struck by the fact that the title is community engagement and outreach. I've been doing science outreach since I started my first program back in 2007, and I love working with K-12 students and the general public. Community engagement is important to me also because every person who sets foot on this campus should feel welcomed and respected. Plus, when I drove onto campus, I saw all my favorite animals."
She describes community engagement as both internally building campus culture and externally engaging surrounding communities—from educating K-12 students to partnering with local organizations to providing service learning opportunities. "It's very unique to have a role that's all things community. That is basically who I am and what drives me."
To familiarize herself with campus, Rokop tagged along with Adventures in Veterinary Medicine (AVM) students over the summer. AVM is run by the Office of Community Engagement and Outreach to introduce middle, high school, and college students to the veterinary field.
"I went to all the lessons, to the sheep barns, horse barns, to see the cows, to the Sim Lab, the Anatomy Lab—I just did it all," she says.
Rokop has spent much of her time talking with faculty, staff, and students about their experiences at Cummings School. "There are a lot of people who care about community on this campus. I've been getting to know all of the passionate people doing the great work and listening to what works well and ways where more support would be helpful."
Outside of her work fostering educational communities, Rokop enjoys music, photography, traveling, her cats and dogs, and time with friends and family.
On her role as the new assistant dean, Rokop says, "I get to combine being immersed in the fields of biology and medicine with interacting with students and trainees at all levels. I like starting outreach programs, designing a new course, launching a new effort, or running a committee. It's fun to be boots on the ground with students and still be a part of my field, thinking about things in a big-picture, strategic way. I love being around students and making people feel welcomed, respected, and valued. And this role is literally all of those things."