STEMinar: Liberated Intellects: Coming out as Formerly Incarcerated within Biology

Robert Hall is a first-generation, low-income, and formerly incarcerated scholar who started community college at 28. After earning his associate degree, he transferred to UW–Madison, where he became a Ronald E. McNair Scholar. While there, Robert faced housing instability, yet successfully navigated a double major in Genetics and History, a Minors in Stem Cell Sciences and Environmental Studies, and an Amgen Research Experience at Caltech. Simultaneously, he began Liberated Intellects, a project to help formerly incarcerated people pursue education. Upon earning his Bachelor of Science in 2023, he spent four months at the NIH researching meiotic recombination. Now launching his Stanford University Biology PhD, Robert is also reformatting Liberated Intellects with mentors at Howard University, Boston University, and beyond. To mirror his growing expertise in biosciences, he aims to advance biology mentoring for people who have experienced housing instability (homelessness, incarceration, foster care, detention and refugee camps, etc.). Robert is an NSF-GRFP and Adam Smith Fellow recipient, reflecting the multiple intellectual interests originally shaped during his broad reading while incarcerated. He hopes to be of service by answering your questions about how to forge ahead today and in the future.