A Formula for Success

Photo courtesy of Vanderbilt University

A succession of insightful female mentors emerges as Steven Townsend, Ph.D., CAS ’05, tells the story of his journey from Detroit youth to Oakland University biochemistry major to Stevenson Professor of Chemistry at Vanderbilt University. These women recognized Dr. Townsend’s potential, helping him acquire the skills for success while also modeling the template of mentorship that guides his interactions with his students today.

Townsend’s story begins when his first influential mentor, his mother, recognized his intellectual curiosity and nudged him into the yard to garden and compost, hobbies he enjoys to this day. She provided him with books about scientists Jonas Salk and Louis Pasteur, and he became a voracious reader of scientific texts.

When Townsend arrived at OU, his high ACT math score caught the attention of Biochemistry Professor Kathleen Moore, Ph.D., who invited him to work in her lab. Townsend spent a year with Dr. Moore, learning the fundamentals of the scientific method, before she directed him to Professor of Chemistry Amanda Bryant-Friedrich. Working in Bryant-Friedrich’s lab, Townsend learned how to do science “at the highest level,” as he worked with graduate students, investigating the damaging effects of cancer on DNA.

Photo courtesy of Vanderbilt University

“Because of my time with Amanda, I knew what I was doing when I got to graduate school,” Townsend says. In the process, he gained a lifetime mentor, colleague and friend.

Although academics were Townsend’s primary focus, he found time to get involved in campus organizations. Always the learner, he gathered insights from mentors outside of the classroom as well. 

As an orientation group leader, Townsend worked closely with Dawn Aubry, now vice president for enrollment management. She taught him, among other things, to leave a tip for hotel service people. “If you’re a poor kid from Detroit, maybe you didn’t stay at hotels, but that’s going to change and you need to know how to act,” he says. “So I think a lot of my social game I would attribute to Dawn Aubry.”

Townsend also drew inspiration from Jean Ann Miller, now senior director of the Office for Student Involvement. “There were days when I was tired, but I would talk to Jean Ann, and that was better than coffee; she pumped me up,” he says.

After receiving several OU awards — a Keeper of the Dream Scholarship and the Alfred G. Wilson Award — Townsend went on to complete a Ph.D. in chemistry at Vanderbilt University and a postdoctoral research fellowship at Columbia University, where it became evident that his Oakland training had fully prepared him. 

“There was no chemical maneuver or skill that I didn’t know how to do,” says Townsend. “People are convinced that you need to go to Yale or Cal Tech … but that’s false. If you get solid training, you can go wherever you want to go.”

Now in his biochemistry lab at Vanderbilt, Townsend’s students share his research passion, investigating the unique properties of human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) — the sugars found in human breast milk, a fluid that he describes as “the second-most important liquid on earth [after water].” Together, Townsend and his students test and develop applications that utilize the properties of HMOs: from therapies that protect gut health to paint that prevents biofilm from attaching to ships. 

With a strong belief in providing opportunities like the ones he found at OU, Townsend says, “One thing that attracted me to Vanderbilt is its similarity to Oakland. There are no barriers. If you want to do something, you do it.”