Emilia Gildemeister ’18 has been trekking through her past four years at Houghton with a spirit of constant curiosity, ambition and adventure. As a biology major with an environmental emphasis and a chemistry minor, Gildemeister is an avid explorer of the passions she thrives under. She has taken advantage of the opportunities Houghton has given her in pursuing what she deems as important and vital for the fullest life.
“I have been very involved in research here at Houghton,” Gildemeister began. “I did Science Honors here my freshman year, and then over the past three summers, I’ve done research with one of my professors through the summer research institute. That was super cool.”
In the summer after her sophomore year, Gildemeister and her small team experimented with salamanders, examining predator-prey interactions in northern California and Oregon. This past summer, they hiked through the Mojave Desert and the Sierra Nevada. Both summers were part of a biodiversity study.
“Because I had worked with salamanders in the past, for my seniors honors project I wanted to design an experiment to test associative learning in salamanders, which kind of relates to climate change,” Gildemeister stated. “I’m super interested in how we are impacting the world, our responsibility to take care of it, and how complex God’s creation is in its ability to adapt to all these changes.”
When asked more about her experience hiking in California, Gildemeister explained the thrill of having a job where she explored the west coast. “We’d be on the trail for a week at a time, and we would just wake up every morning as soon as the sun came up. My job was to do vegetation assessments and also every time we spotted a reptile or an amphibian we would stop and do a vegetation assessment in that place.”
While hiking through the Mojave Desert, Gildemeister and her team had to carry approximately seven liters of water at a time. During the later part of their adventures, Gildemeister came down with altitude sickness. “It was pretty insane,” she said. “We were in the middle of the wilderness so the two options were to get helicoptered out or hike out. I couldn’t really breathe and it was like that for like four days. Every time I walked, I would start coughing and it felt like I was either gonna pass out or throw up and I couldn’t sleep for three nights straight.” Eventually, Gildemeister was medically evacuated from the wilderness and to the hospital. “Once I was off at a lower elevation, I did a lot better. It took me a few weeks to feel back to normal.”
In addition to her fearful experience, Gildemeister shared how dynamic these trips have been in her life. “I think it was really eye-opening in some ways. I was living in a backpack for two months and I had like three T-shirts, and when you’re on the trail, you’re starving, but you can only carry so much food. It was hard coming back here to a closet full of clothes that I never wear. I learned what’s important in life because your priorities are really different.”
Gildemeister is “still trying to figure out” how to marry these two radically different lifestyles because “I don’t want to live my life feeling so safe. I like that feeling and that reliance I had that God’s gonna look out for me and protect me.”
As she looks forward to pursuing a career that gives her the freedom to explore the world, nurture curiosity, and ask important questions, Gildemeister ended with some advice for Houghton students. “I think that I was really scared my freshman year. I think if you are bold and you reach out, you’re going to have opportunities like this. I would recommend being bold and further yourself as much as possible. When people know you’re curious, or interested in things, professors are going to do all they can to help you.”