Pratiksha Yalakkishettar

Pratiksha Yalakkishettar wants to use science to solve big, intractable, societal problems. “My mom is a doctor, and she’s really good at working with people one-on-one to help them.” Pratiksha wants to take it a step further. “I want to do that, but I also want the skills to make changes in a community. I want the knowledge and credentials to be able to identify a problem and then do something about it.”

To put her words into action, she wants to develop a capstone project that helps young teenagers develop healthy, lifelong behaviors. “This is the age where they start to lose their individual patterns and begin to aggregate with peers, where they lose track of what they love and do what everyone else is doing. I think college students are in a perfect position to be role models to them.”

A woman of many talents, she is a Biology and Public Health major, conversationally fluent in Spanish and learning Japanese. She’s studied viruses that may be related to colony collapse in bees with Prof. John Burand and is a peer ambassador for the Commonwealth Honors College. Pratiksha is a patient thinker who absorbs many opinions and perspectives before deciding on her own. While rarely the most outspoken member of a group, her contributions usually shape the course of the discussion.

What drew her to iCons? Pratiksha is wants to be able to take her scientific knowledge and skills and use them to work directly with people. “iCons is everything I love to do. We see how everything is connected, and then we apply what we’ve learned. It’s so easy to get stuck in the ‘this is my major and this is what I’ll learn’ mentality, and so many classes just make you sit there and listen. In iCons, we talk and produce.”

iCons director Scott Auerbach has seen firsthand how well Pratiksha can integrate knowledge into action. "Pratiksha is one of our shining beacons, keeping us as a program and a community focused on the role of rigorous science in solving today's major problems. For example, when discussing HIV/AIDS in Africa with Dr. William Lee (Senior VP for Research at Gilead Sciences, Inc.), the discussion naturally visited legal and political topics. Pratiksha stood up and exerted her natural leadership abilities, pushing and pulling us all back to the power of science to address this world health problem. We are lucky to have Pratiksha in The iCons Program!"