"Take Five" with Kaitlyn Webster
"Take Five" is an occasional feature in which we pose five questions to an MBL community member about their career, dreams, and passions.
1. When did you study at the MBL? What class did you take?
I was a FIRbee in 2019, when I took the Frontiers in Reproduction (FIR) course. I returned as a FIR alum in 2024 to present at the final-week symposium, and I’ve also been back to the MBL many times in the spring for the Northeast Society for Developmental Biology conference.
2. What is your area of study?
I’m a reproductive geneticist. My research focuses on sex differentiation, gametogenesis, and gonad development, using models like cavefish and zebrafish. Before FIR, I had never studied mammalian reproduction or sperm–egg fusion. What I learned in the course enabled me to develop an entirely new research program—one that led to my being awarded a 2025 L’Oréal For Women in Science Fellowship.
3. What is your favorite MBL memory?
Getting to carry out in vitro fertilization from egg retrieval through microinjection was an awe-inspiring experience and an incredible privilege. In that moment, we all realized the potential broader impact of our basic research, and it renewed our excitement for biology in an almost childlike way.
4. Did you make connections at the MBL? Do you keep in touch with your friends and mentors?
Absolutely. There are people from FIR I still talk to every single day—years later. The friendships and mentorships I formed at MBL are foundational to my career. FIR introduced me to faculty who became my mentors, champions, and collaborators. They review my grants, write letters of support, share resources, answer experimental questions, and offer career advice.
What’s unique is how accessible everyone is. Your teachers and course directors are working alongside you, eating meals with you, and spending real time together. Those relationships don’t end when the course does—they’ve stayed active and meaningful long after I left Woods Hole.
5. What makes the MBL different from other places you’ve studied?
At MBL, your interactions with faculty, staff, and fellow researchers are fully immersive and move seamlessly between work and social life. You’re not just learning science—you’re learning how to be a better collaborator, lab mate, and friend.
Because you live, work, and learn together, the learning doesn’t stop at the end of the day. Science conversations continue over meals, at breakfast, at Pie in the Sky, and late into the night. You see your colleagues as whole people, and that builds trust, openness, and kindness in how you work together.
Everyone at MBL truly wants to be there, and that shared enthusiasm creates a special sense of community. It’s a place where people are united by curiosity, generosity, and a willingness to lift each other up as they climb.
