Clarissa Freeman Overcomes Challenges to Pursue Interest in Science

It is amazing how much we can accomplish if we set ourselves to doing something, notes Clarissa Freeman. A Hampton University student and JLab intern, Freeman speaks from experience.

She graduated from HU in May with a bachelor's degree in physics and a wealth of experience gained while working as an intern in JLab's Radiation Detector and Medical Imaging Group.

"I'm passionate about science," she says, "and I'm very attracted to the human side of the radiation detector group's medical imaging developments."

Freeman first got excited about science while attending elementary school in Springfield, Ill.

"The school system was looking for ways to improve academics and get more students interested in math and science," she recalls. "The PTA was interested in making the school I attended a math and science magnet school. The teachers and the curriculum placed a lot of emphasis on exposing us to math and science outside the classroom."

Freeman got swept up in the excitement of learning, but her world was turned upside down one morning when she woke up unable to move. She was diagnosed with a form of spina bifida that threatened to leave her paralyzed. What followed were years of surgeries, physical pain, wheel chairs, rehabilitation and medications.

Freeman ended up missing the first two-and-a-half years of high school due to her health problems. During that time she relearned how to walk and taught herself pre-calculus from a hospital bed.

"When a lesson would get really difficult or confusing, I'd start asking the nurses and doctors if they could explain it to me," she remembers.

Freeman made it back to the classroom for her senior year, recalling, "It went pretty well. I really liked science and I was very interested in biology. I enjoyed doing experiments."

With high school behind her, Freeman decided to attend Hampton University and major in biology. "My parents were concerned about the distance from home and my doctors," she recalled, "but I decided that this is what I wanted to do."

During her first week at HU, Freeman attended freshman orientation, where she heard professors talk excitedly about their work. It was then that she decided to minor in physics, which eventually became her academic focus even though it presented a huge challenge.

"While I'd taught myself pre-calculus, I had missed so much of high school and teaching myself math had been so difficult that I hadn't pursued calculus. Now I was going to have to catch up on the math I lacked. It wasn't easy," she says. "During that first year I spent any free time I had in the library studying. I just kept telling myself that I could do this."

It was also during her freshman year that Freeman learned about the Department of Energy's Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships program. She applied, was accepted and was a SULI intern at Jefferson Lab after her freshman and sophomore years, working with Stan Majewski, head of the Radiation Detector and Medical Imaging Group on a dual-headed compact gamma camera system. When her internship ended, she got permission to stay on as an unpaid intern so that she could continue working with the group.

"I hadn't finished the project. I really wanted to finish this project," she explains. "For the last two years I've come in as the workload dictated, and my class-work allowed."

The dual-headed scintimammography unit she helped develop is now at the University of Virginia for clinical trials. Working on the device and other projects has made her aware of the myriad requirements needed to bring a new piece of equipment into a medical environment.