Courtney JnBaptiste PhD ’16 spent the first 19 years of his life on the idyllic Caribbean island of Saint Lucia, surrounded by clear waters, sandy beaches, and a robust agricultural community. His family owned their own farm, where they grew bananas and other crops for export. JnBaptiste and his six siblings spent hours each day after school and on the weekends helping to harvest the fruits of their labor. “We were better off than most, but it was a hard existence,” he says. “I had to fight to make something out of life. Where I am today is a big leap.”
He has since moved to the U.S. and completed his PhD at the MIT Department of Biology. Today, he uses the strategic thinking skills he learned during graduate school in his job as a patent agent, helping researchers protect their inventions and start biotech companies.
