by Thaddeus Flint
In a school district such as Berlin’s, where weekly accounts of its leaders on the Board of Education squabbling and accomplishing very little have become rather commonplace, it is easy to forget that the District actually exists for the students. So it might come as some relief to recognize that some of the students of Berlin High School are accomplishing quite a bit. There is probably no better recent example of this than Kinsley French of Cherry Plain.
Board Member Frank Zwack at the June 21 Board meeting lauded French as an example of how students from Berlin could “go on and do something amazing.” Zwack even stopped a room full of teachers and public from rushing out into the halls of the school to eat cake in celebration of tenures and retirements to make his point. “Wait,“ he said, “this is important.”
It turns out that of over a thousand graduating students at RPI this spring, three were from Berlin. These were French, French’s brother Christopher French and Zwack’s nephew Michael Zwack. “That’s incredible!’ said Zwack.
Kinsley French however didn’t just graduate. She was also awarded the J. Erik Jonsson Prize for having a perfect 4.0 grade point average, graduating with a dual major in mathematics and biology. As if that wasn’t incredible enough, she accomplished it all in just three and a half years.
After graduating Valedictorian from Berlin in 2007, French started commuting to Troy each day from her home on Cherry Plain Hill where she grew up with her five siblings. French had already been prepared for what to expect at Rensselaer Polytechnic. At Berlin she had been a member of the Questar III New Visions curriculum which is actually part of the often maligned BOCES program. As part of its METS (Mathematics, Engineering, Technology and Science) program French had previously attended classes at RPI while still in her senior year at Berlin. She took Physics I and II at RPI in the morning before returning to Berlin High School in the afternoons. “It was a bit nerve wracking at first,” said French, “I was in a room of 18 to 21 year-olds, and I couldn’t even see an R rated movie yet.”
In her junior year at RPI, French began research under Professor George Makhatadze
in his Biocomputation and Bioinformatics lab. “This was perfect for me,” said French, who had wanted to do something combining both her interests in biology and math. “I wanted to do some stuff with computation, but I didn’t want to be stuck at a computer all day.” This lab also allowed her to do experimental work and research.
French’s research focuses on how proteins in the body sometimes clump together, a process called aggregation. This seemingly simple biochemical process though might play a role in the transmission of HIV by men. A specific type of protein fragment has been found to form fibrils that increase the transmission of HIV by up to 100,000 times over its non-aggregated form. “By understanding how the aggregates are formed, we can lay the foundation to better understand how HIV is transmitted,” French said. “And by understanding that process, we hope to begin putting the pieces in place to hopefully develop a new therapeutic against HIV transmission.” Her research has already been published in the journal Biochemistry.
French has earned a graduate research award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to pursue her research into proteins and HIV transmission while she works toward her doctoral degree at Rensselaer. A Doctorate in this field might usually take one around five years to achieve. French intends to do it in three. The award, which goes to only a select few graduate students around the nation, will help cover French’s tuition, fund her research and provide her a stipend while she pursues her Ph.D.
“I would, without hesitation, put Kinsley as the best overall of all students that I worked with during 20 years of my academic career at some of the best schools in the United States,” said Dr. Makhatadze. “It seems to me that Kinsley excels in everything she does. She maintained a 4.0 GPA and is first in her class at RPI while pursuing a dual major. She is fantastic in the lab, and she even finds time to do significant amounts of outreach in the rural parts of upstate New York as a math and science tutor,” Makhatadze said.
That’s right. In her spare time French goes back to Berlin and tutors students there in various subjects. She also coached the summer swimming team at New Lebanon. She is also a qualified life guard. She also teaches swimming lessons. So it’s no surprise when French, looking back at her time in the Berlin schools, credits teachers who were the most rigorous as those who most influenced and inspired her while growing up. “The one that sticks in my mind the most in the elementary school was probably my fifth grade teacher Deborah Sweeney. She definitely prepared us for the rigors, and you tend to forget your elementary school teachers, but she really gave us a good base.” In high school she remembers English teacher Cristi Lamontagne as the one who most improved her writing skills now so important to one who will be writing a thesis while in pursuit of a doctorate. “It’s because she was so critical,” said French, “in doing that it really made me try harder and strive harder. She pushed me to become a much better writer. Tough love!”