Bella Moran ’27 Marches To Her Own Beat,
Like a fingerprint, every college student’s academic journey is unique.
It’s what makes campus life special.
Isabella (Bella) Moran ’27 attended Grayslake North High School in a suburb of Chicago before enrolling at Keene State to study Chemistry and Neuroscience.
She collects wacky ties, confesses to writing “terrible” science poetry, and relishes “nerding out” with her peers.
Bella is also fascinated by scientific research, the freedom it invites, and the lines of inquiry it generates. An internship through NH-INBRE at Dartmouth College last summer provided her with those experiences, along with a chance to present her findings at the program’s annual conference.
Bella owns her authenticity, or what she might call her quirkiness. She’s smart, funny, and to an extraordinary degree, perceptive and present. She writes evocatively and with a tuned ear. She is a bright light on a big campus.
“I moved 1,000 miles away from home to meet myself,” she says, her words sounding a bit like a song title.
“I am proud that I decided to come here, and even more so of who I have become,” Bella says. “My mom immigrated from Colombia and did not get her degree. My father received his degree in a haze and hasn’t used it in 40 years. My parents were terrified that I would end up like them, that I would have to struggle in the ways they did. School felt like a terrible obligation, like I was disappointing my parents
with every missed exam question, every standardized test score, and every day I couldn’t create the opportunities they never had.
“My parents had noble intentions, but it is that very fear that perpetuates a cycle of heartache and struggle. My parents’ American dream is wealth. My American dream is fulfillment, and I have found it here at Keene State.”
Oh, and by the way, Bella has autism. She says she owes her strong sense of empathy to that reality. She views her condition as neither inherently better nor worse, just “different.”
“I know what it’s like to be misunderstood, assigned labels and characteristics based on nothing more than prejudice, and discounted because I’m ‘just weird like that.’ These experiences have driven me to create a safe space for others, something I wish I had growing up.”
Bella has been spotted on campus in a gold-yellow cotton sweatshirt and matching pants with the phrase “What if it all works out?” printed vertically on the front of the sweatshirt next to two flowers.
It is who she is in a single snapshot.
Bella is relentlessly positive, and, as one might guess by now, at the same time affectionately “unreasonable.”
“There is simply no other way for me to exist. I spend time on things that seem arbitrary, I go out of my way to expand on assignments that would have been just fine without the extra oomph, and I look like I stepped out of a Dr. Seuss book most days.
“I am stubborn and refuse to give up on things that would seem like a waste of time for anyone else. I complete tasks in an inefficient manner and put the most effort into silly side projects. That is what makes me so wonderfully me! There is joy in being extravagant, in showing up loudly when others expect a whisper. I hope that I never become moderate. It’s far too much fun to be unreasonable!”
Bella says she struggled in high school, found academics scary, and couldn’t see the trees through the confusion and lack of understanding about why she needed to learn what she was being taught.
Her early college days were not much better. “I would decide why an assignment was important to me. If a project did not align with my interests, I would find a way to twist it into something I was excited about. … Taking that leap of faith and believing that I knew what was best for my academics was scary.”
But over time, she says, her understanding of material and confidence in her academic ability grew exponentially. “I am comfortable with my learning style, and that is what matters most. Plus, my notes look pretty cool!”
Bella counts among her inspirations a high school physics teacher – “I used to come into his class during my free period, and we would talk about everything from terminal velocity to the importance of failure in academics,” she says – and her Mom, who immigrated to the United States so her children could have more than she did.
She originally thought she wanted to be an engineer, but soon realized that rote memorization and compressible fluid dynamics “were not my jam.” While reading an interesting science fiction novel, Bella Googled the author to see if they had written anything else. She learned that the author had a PhD. in neuroscience. She began looking into neuroscience and found it so interesting that she decided it would be her major.
At Dartmouth, Bella and her small lab team showed, unintentionally, that the virus they were studying only mutated after a specific time point, which turned out to be the “first new piece of substantial information about these mutations in 40 years,” she notes.
Bella then worked with the primary investigator and a graduate student to build an experiment to explore this mechanism in greater depth. Once the research portion of the program was complete, Bella was chosen to give an oral presentation about the group’s work at the annual NH-INBRE conference.
It was a personal growth moment unlike any other for her.
“I have found pieces of my American dream in research, tutoring, and lectures,” Bella says. “I am proud that I was able to break from a fearful headspace. I am proud that I pursue my academics out of passion and with an insatiable appetite. I am proud that I do this both for and as myself.”
Bella has grown to feel more comfortable with change, she says. What she has never veered from is her individuality, someone who sees “unreasonable” as a charming and defining quality, and the young woman who is not just okay “looking like I stepped out of a Dr. Seuss book most days,” but who wouldn’t want it any other way.
Bella played on the women’s soccer team, is a student tutor, and is part of STEPS, which stands for STEM Transformational Experiences to Promote Success. The grant-funded initiative provides financial, academic, and career support for eligible biology and chemistry students at Keene State. She enjoys knitting and crocheting.
Where does Bella’s winding, captivating life adventure lead next? She has an idea.
“In a perfect world, I would be defending my PhD thesis five years from now. I imagine it will be on the neurobiological effects of menstruation on those with autism. Hopefully, I will be based in Boston and collaborate with scientists from all over the country.
“I am also imagining a cat or pet sheep somewhere in the mix.”