Glamour Names Gupta One of Top 10 College Women

For Srishti Gupta '97-'96, being named one of Glamour Magazine's "top ten most promising college women" has had very little immediate effect. She has been busy working to meet a Tuesday deadline for a Fulbright Scholarship.

Plus, the Leverett House resident--who has had research published in three genetics journals--feels more comfortable in a lab coat than a fashion magazine.

"At my lab they kid around because [being in Glamour] is really bi-polar to what I do," Gupta says. "It's a very noble thing to do science, but I didn't think they'd find it glamorous."

In the October issue of Glamour, Gupta appears with nine other winners drawn from schools across the nation including Stanford, Yale and Rice universities. Gupta's counterparts include everything from a future rabbi to an accomplished New York City painter.

Gupta, who received her A.B. in biology in June, is finishing her A.M. in the same field at Harvard this year and has kept herself busy applying to medical and graduate schools.

She says meeting the other winners at a Glamour organized gala event in New York City last month has helped her face the stress of starting another school year.

"Meeting the other women was really inspiring, especially before starting senior year when I'm a little apprehensive about medical school and grad school," says Gupta. "It was a high-energy group, and we're trying to keep in touch."

As co-president of the South Asian Association and vice-chair of the Academic Affairs Committee of the Harvard Foundation for Inter-Cultural and Race Relations, Gupta also has responsibilities outside the lab. She is a violinist who has a black belt in a Korean martial art.

Appearing on Glamour's "Top Ten" list runs in Gupta's family.

"My sister was one of the top ten college women several years ago," Gupta says. "But that wasn't the reason why I did it. I saw the poster in Leverett and I decided to do it, and so I went to talk with my Senior Tutor."

Gupta's application included faculty recommendations and an essay on "something you've undertaken to forward your career."

Gupta's essay focused on the science enrichment program "Experimentors" she and a fellow student piloted at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School in 1993.

"We wanted to make science cool using practical everyday things," she says.

"The point of the program was to get [the students] excited about science and to show them that it could be their cup of tea."

To illustrate complex genetics, Gupta explained the concepts and related them to the movie "Jurassic Park" and popular trials that centered on DNA fingerprinting as evidence.

Gupta says she is concerned particularly with encouraging minorities and women interested in science to follow their dreams.

"The numbers [of minorities and women] get smaller and smaller the higher you go," she says

"The point of the program was to get [the students] excited about science and to show them that it could be their cup of tea."

To illustrate complex genetics, Gupta explained the concepts and related them to the movie "Jurassic Park" and popular trials that centered on DNA fingerprinting as evidence.

Gupta says she is concerned particularly with encouraging minorities and women interested in science to follow their dreams.

"The numbers [of minorities and women] get smaller and smaller the higher you go," she says