Emily Bremers grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, in a household where education shaped daily life. Both of her parents worked full time and also taught courses at a local community college. Their example set expectations early.

“Education mattered, and it carried real weight,” Bremers says.

When she considered graduate school, her mother reminded her she was fortunate to be paid to keep learning. That idea stayed with her and shaped her approach to her career.

Bremers will receive her doctorate in biochemistry this week from UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Her interest in biology developed early and deepened during her undergraduate years, when she became drawn to parasites.

“They offered a way to understand how living systems work under pressure,” she says.

Parasites also pointed to urgent global challenges, including diseases that affect millions of people. At Franklin, Bremers found an opportunity to study both science and how it is taught.

“I knew I wanted to attend graduate school at Franklin because it was one of the few programs that allowed students to pursue a multidisciplinary degree in biology and biology education research,” Bremers says. “Franklin also has one of the largest concentrations of parasitologists and biology education researchers in the United States.”

Her research combined those interests. She worked in the labs of Belen Cassera, associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Julie Stanton, associate professor in the Department of Cellular Biology. Supported by a predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health, she led a project on drug resistance in the malaria parasite.

The research examined how the parasite survives treatment through a common resistance mechanism. The work contributes to efforts to address a major global health challenge.

At the same time, Bremers studied how students learn in the life sciences. Her work focused on metacognition, the ability to reflect on and regulate one’s thinking. Research shows these skills can improve academic performance and deepen understanding.

“Scientific knowledge has impact when people know how to use it,” Bremers says.

“As an undergraduate, I worked directly with students and helped them identify what they did not yet understand,” Bremers says. “Seeing how these skills could support learning, I wanted to study how students develop them over time.”

That work now leads to a postdoctoral position at the University of Washington. There, she will study how students think and collaborate in science classrooms, with a focus on social metacognition during group work.

She also plans to bring research into the classroom. She is interested in teaching course-based undergraduate research experiences in drug discovery, giving students opportunities to work on treatments for parasitic diseases while learning how to approach scientific problems.

A consistent theme runs through her work.

“Education allows people to understand complex systems and act on that understanding,” Bremers says.

As she prepares to graduate, she hopes to help more students see science as something they can engage with and use.

“I am proud to represent Franklin because I have worked with such talented researchers and professors,” Bremers says.