Simon Lab Spotlight! Carter Williams

Carter Williams, Associate Researcher, from Manhattan, NY 
B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD     

Q. Cats or Dogs or Other? 
A. Without question, cats. 

Q. What sparked your interest in virology research or led you to join the Simon and Mulder Lab? 
A. My interest in viruses is longstanding, but I was actually drawn to the Simon and Mulder Lab because of the way it's organized. I thought it was very cool to see a lab doing both clinical research and basic science. Running experiments on clinical samples that we collect ourselves allows us to answer some really interesting questions. 

Q. What is the most interesting part of your job? 
A. Sometimes when looking at results from the experiments I run, there is a brief moment where I'm the only person in the world who knows something, even if it's very minor. I think that's pretty neat! Then of course comes the fun part of sharing it with everyone else. 

Q. What is your favorite spot in New York? 
A. The waterfront in Long Island City. It has the best views, especially at night. 

Q. How did the Pandemic impact your position on research and virology? 
A. The pandemic made finding opportunities to do research during college quite hard, since scientists were rightfully a little preoccupied. I ended up focusing on learning computer science, which has really strengthened my ability to analyze and visualize data. 

Q. What does a day in the lab look like? 
A. I'm a bit of a generalist, so no two days look the same. Some projects skew very wet-lab, coding, or clinical, but most fall somewhere in-between. On a given day I might be running molecular biology assays, helping process clinical samples, or writing scripts to help analyze data. 

Q. Aside from being a great scientist, what would you describe as your personal superpower? 
A. I try to assume that I'm capable of anything until I try and fail at least once. Every now and then, I pleasantly surprise myself. 

Q. If you could share one piece of advice with people interested in research, what would it be? 
A. Write everything down! You never know what will end up being important later. Nobody has ever looked back at their lab notebook and thought "I wish I hadn't taken such thorough notes."  

Thank you Carter for sharing your story and also Aidan Vera for helping with the Spotlight Series!