Maeve Smith

Maeve will be graduating this spring 2023, completing her Bachelor of Science degree in Animal Science with a concentration in biotechnology and research. Originally Maeve was drawn to UMass for its great reputation as one of the top pre-veterinary programs in the country with a high percentage of applicants from UMass getting accepted to veterinary schools. In high school Maeve had a passion for veterinary medicine after shadowing multiple veterinarians and having an aptitude for science classes. 

During her Freshman and Sophomore years, Maeve’s primary goal was to explore animal related experiences to ensure veterinary school would be the right fit after completion of her undergraduate degree. She was a member of the Pre-Vet and Animal Science Club where she heard ambassadors for veterinary schools give advice on how to be a strong applicant and she learned about other career choices within the field of animal science. She also took animal management classes to get hands-on experience with different species including beef cattle and Boer goats. These were memorable classes where she enjoyed working with newborn calves and kids, tracking their growth and learning about their development. After her Freshman year, Maeve worked as a veterinary technician in a private general practice veterinary clinic. She worked with cats and dogs and enjoyed the client interaction as well as the problem-solving aspect of figuring out how to help a sick pet. She gained experience in preventative care, surgical assisting, radiology and much more. During her Sophomore year, she began a position as a teaching assistant for Animal Science 101 and 103, two required classes for incoming animal science majors. She found the experience rewarding as she enjoyed being a mentor and teacher for other students and sharing her experience with animals with those eager to learn. 

In her Junior year, Maeve pursued experience working in a research laboratory as an undergraduate. She did this to help fulfill the expectation that veterinary schools prefer their applicants to have research experience. Maeve joined the Arcaro lab where she began working on the canine tumor project. This project helped her gain skills in cell culture, microscopy and reading scientific literature. After her first semester in the lab, Maeve fell in love with research and started to shift her career goals. During her second semester in the lab, she helped with the New Moms Wellness Study which is a diet intervention study, comparing the effect that a diet rich in produce versus an unsupplemented diet, has on women’s breast milk and tissue, as well as breast cancer incidence. As a researcher on this study, Maeve was responsible for processing breast milk samples that came into the lab, attending weekly lab meetings and running further tests on the breast milk. Working on this study gave Maeve deeper insight into how research can benefit human health and wellness as well as experience working with a larger team as this study has hundreds of participants to manage. She found that human research is now her passion. Maeve presented a poster during the VASCI science day where she shared how she had been studying the relationship between elevated sodium/potassium ratio in breast milk and detection of subclinical mastitis. 

Maeve was fortunate to receive funding from the NIH through Dr. Laura Vandenberg’s Summer Scholars program which enabled Maeve to stay in the Arcaro lab that summer. She worked on a research internship examining the effect that PFAS exposure had on individuals’ ability to build immunity against SARS-CoV-2. To do this she worked with her lab partner under the mentorship of two principal investigators, Dr. Kathleen Arcaro & Dr. Youseff Oulhote, and an ABBS master’s degree student. Maeve learned the ELISA assay technique which was then applied to assess antibody levels to SARS-CoV-2 in blood provided by participants from areas of known PFAS contamination which was determined by the CDC. This project required a lot of independent research, collaboration, and troubleshooting to develop a protocol and analyze results. Maeve found her summer of research to be very rewarding and helped her make the decision to depart from the pre-veterinary track and instead delve into biotechnology and research and the study of immunology.

With the new skills Maeve developed from her internship, she went into her senior year working with her mentor and lab partner to examine more relating to SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Her new project, Bivalent Booster Study examines how effectively the new bivalent BA.4/BA.5 Moderna or Pfizer vaccine provided protection against the original and omicron strains of SARS-CoV-2. This study was built from the ground up and Maeve gained experience in human participant recruitment, study design, data collection, and biological sample collection. Participants were asked to provide blood spots and saliva that were both analyzed for multiple antibodies to determine effectiveness of the new vaccine, especially against the more novel omicron strain for which previous vaccines did not target. 

Currently, Maeve is working on the Bivalent Booster Study and is now helping with the ROSE study as well. ROSE stands for “Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere”, it is a yearly conference held to discuss scientific developments and disparities of breastfeeding Black women. Black women are notably less prevalent in research leading to lack of or misinformation when it comes to health. The study Maeve is helping with is examining SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in Black women’s blood, saliva, and breast milk to see how levels in Black women may compare to other demographics. The main aim of this study was recruitment efforts however, seeing which strategies are most effective at acquiring more Black research participants. These methods can then be shared to make research more inclusive and provide much needed answers relating to Black women’s health. 

With all this enriching research experience Maeve has decided to stay at UMass for a fifth year where she will be completing her Master’s degree. The degree is offered through VASCI in their Animal Biotechnology and Biomedical Science program. She will be staying in Dr. Arcaro’s lab to fulfill the research portion of the degree. After obtaining her MS, Maeve hopes to go into the biopharma industry and work in immuno-oncology and vaccine research and development. 

Maeve is very happy with the quality of education at UMass and thankful for the guidance of the outstanding faculty in the VASCI department for helping her choose a rewarding career path.