Anatomy of a Success
By Nicholas Silva
When I moved to San Francisco from Southern California, I had dreams of living my best life as an openly gay teen off to college for the first time. I soon started missing my life back home and thought moving to attend SFSU was a huge mistake. It took me some time to find my community and call the city home before moving again, this time to the Midwest for graduate school. However, my experiences at SFSU changed me forever, and I knew I’d return one day as a Biology professor.
From a young age, I was fascinated with the sciences, as these were the few classes I excelled at in school. Yet, when I mentioned that I wanted to pursue a career in science, my teachers would state that my other coursework was below standards. These comments discouraged me from attending college following high school — and, if I’m being honest with myself, I really wasn’t prepared.
I started working right out of high school as a medical biller and made good money for a young adult, but I couldn’t imagine working in an office for the rest of my life. So, I decided to return to school and enrolled at the local community college to pursue my goals of becoming a biology professor. At the time, I was working two jobs and going to school full time with long nights and a busy schedule, but I was determined to transfer to a four-year university. After several years at Los Angeles Mission College, I transferred to SFSU in 2008 to study Biology with a concentration in Physiology.
I was out of my comfort zone when I arrived at SFSU, but I told myself I cannot return home after it took me everything to get here. I was eager to get research experience and applied to two National Institutes of Health (NIH) fellowships through the Student Enrichment Opportunities office at SFSU. I was awarded both fellowships during my undergraduate and master’s degree studies in the lab of Professor Megumi Fuse. The research experience, training and fellowships at SFSU were critical in preparing me for my next big step: pursuing a Ph.D.
While I was excited to be accepted into the neuroscience Ph.D. program at the University of Michigan, I was sad to be leaving California and felt like I really left my heart in San Francisco. Nevertheless, I told myself that I had been through this before and would return to California after my training. And I did that after earning my Ph.D. and completing my postdoctoral training at University of California, San Francisco, where I won an NIH teaching fellowship as well as a Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers award from the NIH.
Today, I’m an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at SFSU. I spend my days teaching and running an active research program studying neuron-immune mechanisms during brain development and disease states. I also devote as much time as I can to mentoring my students, trying to give them the kind of support that made such a difference for me. My journey was not easy, but it prepared me for my dream job: training and inspiring the next generation of scientist