Choose to Challenge: Laurel Hind

Assistant Professor Laurel Hind began teaching at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in the spring of 2020. Though her career began with and ultimately led to engineering, her educational path has allowed her to focus on biological and immunological interests.
 
“Growing up and in high school, I always really loved science,” Hind said. “I was around a lot of science people.”
 
Hind’s father was an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin—Hind’s alma mater—and her mother was involved in medicine. Because science was a family tradition, she was interested in pursuing a degree in biology, but because of her love of math, she saw engineering as a possible path.
 
She attended the University of Wisconsin and received a degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering, then continued her education at the University of Pennsylvania where she earned a PhD in bioengineering. Her love for and interest in biology influenced her choices as she continued her education.
 
“Biologists and engineers think about problems in very different ways, and I wanted to get back into biology and understand where biologists come from,” Hind said.
 
She returned to the University of Wisconsin to work under Dr. Anna Huttenlocher, where she studied immunology.
 
Though Hind’s career was filled with many successes, she was also faced with challenges that defined the scientist she is today. In her graduate research, her mentor encouraged more independent work, and Hind found that, while it was difficult to get started and find her footing, she was able to explore her scientific interests more. This experience also proved to be useful when she was completing research for her postdoc as well.
 
“It helped my development as an independent researcher,” Hind said.
 
Hind now runs her own research lab here at the university, studying the innate immune response to an infection using bio-inspired engineered devices. As her research group is fairly new, they are still finishing setting up the lab while beginning to run experiments, and she said she is proud of how far her students have come given the setbacks that arose due to the pandemic.
 
Hind is one of several female researchers and assistant professors at CU Boulder, something she was not as used to seeing. When she was earning her undergraduate degree, all of her professors were male. Hind noted that it was a different environment to learn in when she had female peers and instructors in her higher education.
 
“One of the reasons I chose Boulder was because there’s such a strong core of female faculty,” Hind said.

Hind wants incoming and future female scientists to know the importance of camaraderie and finding a group of people to lean on in their science careers.
 
“The best way to succeed is to surround yourself with others who are supportive of your goals and your wellbeing,” Hind said.
 
Hind would like to thank her mentors that have helped her along the way—Dan Hammer and Anna Huttenlocher—as well as her husband, her parents, her peer-mentors and her friends for supporting her career.

About the Author

My name is Erica McNamee and I am a third-year chemical engineering student. I chose to write about Laurel Hind because of the way that she approaches her teaching. She is one of my professors this semester, and from the first time that she taught a lesson, I could tell she was extremely passionate about her work. As a young female in a predominantly male major and field, it's really important for me to see other females in that profession who are excited to teach. I hope that in the future there will be even more female scientists like Dr. Hind that can inspire students to learn.