Chrystie Naeole, Ph.D.

About Chrystie

• When she was a child, she had a curvature in her spine and had to go to physical therapy.
• Her experience as an outpatient inspired her to study to become a physical therapist herself.
• At the end of her junior year at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, she took a “genetics for non-science majors” class.
• She was in a population genetics lab that was studying the biomarkers of fruit flies...and she fell in love with it.
• Simultaneously, she was volunteering as a physical therapist’s aide; as graduation neared, she had to choose between the two.
• Despite having planned to go into physical therapy, she took a risk and applied for a master’s in biomedical science.
• She earned her Ph.D. in biomedical sciences, and won an Achievement Rewards for College Scientists grant for her research.
• Now she teaches undergraduate biology classes at Chaminade University of Honolulu.