Rebecca Watson scores points in fencing and in research

While at Cornell, Scott Strobridge has been active in community service. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

By Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.

Let's say you're Rebecca Watson. You've maintained a job working in a veterinary diagnostic laboratory, maneuvered a full class load into your schedule, carried out biological research as an undergraduate, participated on peer-reviewed journal articles and completed a near-seminal senior honors thesis on microbiology.

What are you going to do now?

If you are Rebecca Watson, you top all that with fencing practice five nights a week, work in a few evenings of weight training and, in your senior year, acquire 39 wins against 23 losses on the women's varsity fencing team.

This biology major, who will graduate Sunday with a degree from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, started her fencing career while in high school only because her Morristown, N.J., school did not have a gymnastics team. "But, they had fencing," said Watson.

At Cornell, women's fencing is a varsity sport and the foil, the epée, and the saber are all available. Watson prefers the epée to the lighter foil.

Fencing epée since 1994, she had to practice against the Cornell men at first, because of a lack of women opponents. She also likes the saber (which is not officially used in women's fencing) because you can score points above the waist, and you can slash.

"I enjoy the competition of fencing," said Watson. "It gives you something back for your overall well-being."

After her first year at Cornell, Watson earned a job working in the Diagnostic Laboratory at the College of Veterinary Medicine with Cornell associate professor Edward Dubovi. There, she completed general laboratory maintenance, research and wrote her senior honors thesis on the detection of the Borna disease virus, which has as its natural hosts horses and sheep.

The disease has been linked to chronic fatigue syndrome and schizophrenia in humans. Using the shell of the viral protein and a polymerase chain reaction test, Watson was able to identify and amplify the region of the DNA, obtained from blood samples, where the virus was present.

After her sophomore year, she and Cornell graduate student Phil Starks began watching the nest mate interaction of wasps in a hot greenhouse. Research articles on the wasp behavior have been accepted by peer-reviewed journals for publication this summer.

After Cornell, she will enter the graduate program in veterinary pharmacology at the University of Florida's veterinary college in Gainesville.

Will Watson continue to fence? "Fencing is not a big thing in Florida," she said. "I'll try to participate in some sport. Perhaps I'll do horseback riding."