The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic had major effects on the world, including being a setback for the incoming class of 2024. Despite many obstacles unfairly being thrown her way, rising junior biology and chemistry major Isabella “Izzy” Beasley has not succumbed to the weight of these challenges or allowed them to change her future plans. Instead she has persevered.

One of her chemistry professors, research facilitators, and mentors, Dr. Irosha Nawarathne, commends Beasley for the incredible work ethic and other admirable characteristics that she has shown so far throughout her time at Lyon College.

“She was in my Year One class on the Chemical Biology of Infectious diseases during the pandemic where we met only virtually,” said Nawarathne.

She continued, “I found her intelligence, work ethics, enthusiasm, divergent thinking ability, collaborative skills, communication strengths, courteous yet outgoing personality, leadership, and preparation for college far beyond excellent for a freshman who has not even had the opportunity to be on campus by then.”

Beasley’s hard work and dedication to her studies has been recognized by more than Dr. Nawarathne, landing Beasley best award in the organic chemistry sequence and one other chemistry program award at this past academic year’s Honors Convocation.

Though the school year has come to an end and summer has begun, Beasley is not putting a stop to her education. She recently had the opportunity to attend the Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program (SCIPP) through a 5-day summer academy designed to introduce students to the topic of climate change, and ended up being the only Arkansan in attendance.

“I specifically want to go into ecology and conservation which is why I was drawn to SCIPP. Because I was like ‘oh my gosh, conservation of ecosystems… that has a lot to do with climate change… you would think,” Beasley said laughing. “They did not cater to me at all. Which was fine, but they were definitely more meteorology and geology based. I still learned a lot.”

While SCIPP did not turn out to be quite what she expected, Beasley stressed that the opportunity still met her expectations of allowing her to learn something new and also allowed her to experience some really interesting things.

“It was really cool because all of the professors there were top Lousianna State University people or top Oklahoma University people. Everyone was teaching us about these climate projection tools that they MADE. How to use them, how to read them, how to interpolate them for other people. All of these top people are giving us first hand knowledge.”

While Beasley admits that SCIPP didn’t quite hit the mark for her specialty, she is convinced that it could be the perfect fit for others interested in a similar field and just an awesome experience overall.

“I would recommend this to lower classmen just because they offer this to so many career paths that are in climate adaptation that I didn’t even know were a thing”, Beasley said.

She continued, “They brought in the city planner from Oklahoma City that made all of this cool stuff and then they took us to the parks that he made. It was actually kind of sick! They brought in writers who create these proposals. A lot of things that I had never thought about before and it was an eye opener.”

Beasley’s plan to go into a career in ecology and conservation has been a longstanding goal of hers since she came to Lyon College.

“Even as a freshman, she knew what research she'd like to go into,” said Nawarathne.

Despite being surrounded by several other branches of climate adaptation, Beasley did not sway in her desire to pursue opportunities within the fields of ecology and conservation. She explained why she is so drawn to this specific field.

“We see a lot of people, species, and ecosystems are suffering because of how we interact with them… literally just with human contamination we are seeing effects. And I think it was cool to see their climate projection trends with our effects and without our effects and how different it was. That was really appealing to me.”

It is clear that despite the unforeseen obstacles thrown in her path during the pandemic, Beasley definitely has the perseverance necessary to achieve her ambitious goals.

Beasley plans to continue pursuing events related to the specialty of conservation that she is interested in while completing her biology and chemistry degrees at Lyon College. Upon graduation she hopes to go into biomedical/environmental research.