Senior Raegan Moss spent her summer working in the lab of Melissa Berrien-Elliott ’06, Ph.D., working with cells used for cancer research. This newly established internship is the alumna’s way of giving back. Photo courtesy of Raegan Moss ’26
Eckerd College alumna Melissa Berrien-Elliott ’06, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, never lost sight of how she got where she is today: hard work and a chance to work in a lab as an undergraduate. In her case, it was under the guidance of former Eckerd Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Sally Spence-Kujawski, Ph.D.
Now Berrien-Elliott would like to see other Eckerd students have a similar opportunity.
“The whole trajectory of my career started when I worked with Sally, who passed away in 2011,” Berrien-Elliott explains. “She was an excellent mentor, and working with her was such a valuable experience. That’s why I’m so passionate now about providing an opportunity to undergraduates. I didn’t know if I wanted to get an advanced degree or what I wanted to do. But working with Sally during my Ford Scholar summer research offered me a really good opportunity to get hands-on experience to help me decide what I would do.
“The thing is, it’s hard to get a lab job.”
So Berrien-Elliott created one. She sponsored an eight-week paid student internship last summer in her research lab at her university. She financed a stipend, and Eckerd College funded living expenses.
Raegan Moss ’26
The student selected was Raegan Moss, a senior from West Des Moines, Iowa, who is majoring in biology with a minor in human development. Raegan spent June and July living in student housing on the Saint Louis University campus.
“When I first started, I was just helping with the experiments,” Raegan says. “But once I had been there a couple of weeks, they started giving me my own projects.
We did so many different things in the lab, but one of the biggest things I learned was about maintaining cells—how to keep them alive and active. The experiments usually lasted a week, and if I wasn’t properly taking care of the cells, the experiments probably wouldn’t work.”
Berrien-Elliott’s research focuses on harnessing the immune system to treat various cancers, and her current work explores how natural killer cells—a type of white blood cell—can be used to treat cancer and chronic viral infections. A marine science major with a minor in chemistry, Berrien-Elliott graduated with honors from Eckerd in 2006. She was a Ford Apprentice Scholar, now known as a Johnston-Ford Scholar, and was invited to be a judge at this year’s annual Eckerd College Research Symposium.
“I hope students like Raegan gain confidence in their own ability,” Berrien-Elliott says. “And a chance to see what it’s like to work in a real working lab, to get the feeling they can contribute to the improvement of human health.”
Berrien-Elliott hopes to offer the internship every summer.
“Looking back on it, Melissa is really good at giving you an understanding of what you’re doing and then letting you figure it out for yourself,” Raegan adds. “When I first started, I just didn’t want to mess anything up. But then I learned to think the process through for myself and rely on what I had learned.”
That, Berrien-Elliott says, is music to a researcher’s ears. “Sounds like the internship was a major success. Ultimately, that’s the idea—for the students to learn something new and wrap their minds around it and then implement it. Raegan is really talented. For her to be able to learn so many new skills in just eight weeks is something to be proud of. Hopefully she felt that way at the end.”
Raegan is currently applying to graduate schools, including Washington University in St. Louis, a prominent research university where Berrien-Elliott had served as an assistant professor. As for Berrien-Elliott, she plans to return to Eckerd next spring for her 20th reunion. “I hope to see Reagan while I’m there,” she says. “I love Eckerd College, and I’m always happy to give back.”
