Celebrating Success: Jessica Ellins

NEWS |

This is the third article in our 2019 news series celebrating high performing Pembroke undergraduate students and recent alumni in their examinations.

Jessica Ellins (Biochemistry, 2015) recently finished her fourth year at Pembroke as the 10th highest performing student across her class achieving a first-class degree. We caught up with Jessica to congratulate her on her recent success. Below, she discusses her time at Pembroke studying Biochemistry, and how the Rokos Awards for research internships enriched her academic studies.

“The past four years studying Biochemistry at Pembroke have been the most rewarding and enjoyable of my life. Pembroke is consistently one of the top colleges academically for Biochemistry, and I put this down to the atmosphere at the college. Our tutor, Andre, is incredibly helpful and ensures we have the most useful tutorials, whilst the Biochemistry students are a tight-knit and supportive group. 

My highlights of Biochemistry have included Molecular Genetics tutorials with Andre, and my Fourth Year Part II project on mechanisms of DNA repair. The Biochemistry course is incredibly broad, which gives you a great education, whilst the tutorial system helps you to find your special areas of interest; for me, that’s genetics. 

Pembroke has been crucial in enabling me to achieve my goals, especially through the provision of the Rokos Award internship in 2018. This allowed me to undertake an 8-week intensive lab project at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology in Oxford. Here I worked in Dr Esashi’s lab, utilising novel microscopy techniques to look at the mobility of a key DNA repair protein. The experience this provided me certainly helped when choosing PhD courses and gave me a distinct advantage in the application process! 

Aside from the academics, Pembroke has been my home for four years - I have made amazing friends and been involved with different sports and societies. I cannot thank Pembroke enough for everything the college has done for me!”