Leo Penny (United States, WK 14-15)

What years did you attend Waterford Kamhlaba? (What forms/year group?)

IB from 2014-2015

Please tell us what you have done or are doing at the moment? (e.g.. what you studied and what field you are currently working in)

I am studying geochemistry (mostly inorganic) at Brown University with a lot of biology. I am currently working as a researcher in synthetic astrobiology under Lynn Rothschild at the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. This job basically entails modifying lifeforms so they are better adapted to living off Earth. My current project involves using gene editing techniques to make a bacterium produce proteins which are useful to a fungus (which we are also designing), in order to create biological structures on Mars. Think of it like a living programmable brick.

Could you tell us what inspired you to pursue your career path.

It’s kind of funny- at WK I didn’t take either chemistry or biology, the two fields I am mostly working in now. Those who knew me at WK knew I wanted to work for NASA more than anything in the world. Figuring out what my contribution would be was harder. Would I be an engineer, a scientist, politician, a janitor? (I’m not joking I did apply to be a janitor at NASA) It was hard for me to decide. In college I found my creativity and knack for strategic games made me really good at designing players for the ultimate game: life. Learning the board: our earth and its geochemistry, meant I knew the game better than most. So, I was drawn to contribute to synthetic biology from the perspective of a geochemist. Synthetic biology and really genetics in general is a really exciting field, all the applications of the CRISPR Cas9 system could be world changing, sometimes so much so that it keeps me up at night thinking about them. Once I found what I was talented and passionate for it was easy to start finding mentors and planning a career.  

Did Waterford in any way play a role in your career path choice? If yes: then what has that role been.

What things keep you going? Which of those things could be taken away from you at a moments notice? For me I definitely hit a low point right after WK. I didn’t make team 40, I had gotten rejected by one of my safety schools and all of my friends were so far away, I thought I might not see them ever again. For me, everything could be taken away except one trait, hope. Hope is a choice. I chose to hope that life would get better, that the world would get better. I kept hoping and working like I still had a chance, I got bad grades and even failed a class my first semester in college. But, I wasn’t afraid to ask for help. I still believed in myself and I think people saw that hope and tried to help me succeed. It won’t be this way for everyone. I think I got lucky to a large degree and part of it is always going to seem like lying to myself saying “I’ve got a chance.” That’s what hope is though, I choose to hope and no one can ever take that away from me. My time at WK was so valuable and it gave me so many things that are untouchable and perhaps indestructible and that is priceless.

What advice would you have for aspiring students who would want to be involved in
similar areas of expertise?

Don’t worry so much about learning the information, focus on figuring out how and why you learn. Once you figure that out, you can jump into whichever field is the most exciting. I learned 0 bio and 0 chem at WK but I was confident that I could learn something new when I got to college and I was able to hop right into the fields that were the most exciting at my school. Go with the wind a bit, if you really click with a professor or a class I think that is much better than forcing yourself through years of torture in a field you don’t like. For me that was going from aerospace engineering and perhaps international relations to geology, something I hadn’t considered at all in my life. Then I met an astrobiologist who gave a talk to some of the planetary geologists and, well, I was struck. Astrobiology is a bit of a strange field to get into so feel free to email me if you need a bit more guidance.

Do you have any fond memories of Waterford? Could you possibly share one with us and could we also ask you to send us one or two pictures of your time at WK?

One word describes all my memories of Waterford, they are all Alive.

In my mind they change colors and parts bulge and move even while I am still trying to remember them.

In my memory, I've forgotten all of the faces. Strange caricatures take their places. my mind forgets how to draw except some impressions, and little scraps of beauty from landscapes, settings. It’s almost as is if the dancing lights of House on Fire fill the whole campus and in no place am I ever sure if its sunset, sunrise, night or day. I've seen every place in all those settings. What makes these memories precious is also their perishability. I can never go back to these places I imagine for they are inseparable from the people who speak, dance, work, cry, laugh and sing around them. Still these embers which threaten to go out also threaten to ignite! There are little motions from my day to day like trying to start a fire, trying to clean a dish or plugging in a flash drive which bring back such strangely vivid memories from a place in the past. I am always surprised which coals still have fire left when I stir them. I can remember textures like the wall of my dorm room, sounds like opening the rusty hinges of our windows and the discomfort of sitting on my butt through a long corridor talent show (though I can't remember what the event actually was? we were dancing, Soren did a backflip in the equivalent show IB1). These sparks of memory become flames and sometimes infernos depending on how much help I can get. The hope is that I'll hit that little reminder which revives the memory I'm looking for.

I'm trying to figure out a good specific memory, one that won't leave you hanging, one that isn't a bunch of TOK type rambling.

Unfortunately many of the best most vivid times weren’t exactly encouraged WK behavior so I’ll just skip them.

I had probably just finished watching a movie off of someone's borrowed hard drive and emerged from my room rubbing my eyes. What time was it? I forget what time the caf stopped serving dinner, but I had definitely overshot that time. I was somewhat notorious for eating weet-bix at Waterford but for some reason a weet-bix + hostel fruit + hostel bread + perhaps canned beans dinner didn't exactly seem very appetizing at this moment. Sometimes the hunger got quite real and I remember there were owes who would eat sauce sandwiches at points, 2 slices of bread and peri peri sauce in between. Luckily, that night I only had to follow my nose to the Favela (our corridor) "kitchen" which wasn't any more than a hotplate plugged into the wall and a sink in a room big enough for 4 people to stand comfortably in. In this room was an IB2, named Willem, maybe humming maybe singing (it's foggy in my mind), cooking up what looked like the most delicious pasta dinner. "You want some? come have some! no really I have extra." I could tell he didn't but at this point I was more hungry than polite so I took him up on his offer. We ate standing up and talked about how life was. I remember him also giving advice, though I don't remember what that advice was, only that I hung on my IB2's every word. At this point in my life I had successfully cooked without the help of my parents only things like ramen noodles and burnt toast. To see someone just a year older able to cook this masterpiece really inspired me. Willem and many of the other IB2s I had were my biggest role models and even my memories of them are still big role models to me today.

As I learned to cook and to cook with friends our "kitchen" transformed into something both magic and ordinary. In that kitchen as I’m sure nearly every UWC student goes through at some point, somewhere, were conversations about religion, politics, existence, love, death, family, regrets and dreams for the future. The wind would blow through that little window and attempt to cool us all down. Some nights there were few of us, some nights it was just me, cleaning a dish by that window. I eventually got to cook a meal for a starving IB1 when I hit IB2 but oddly and sadly I can’t remember much about it. Perhaps that was the ordinariness of many of my moments at WK. In the moment it seemed things would always be that way. Why would I want to remember these moments? I didn’t know how furiously I’d wish I had pictures, journals, memories to recollect things important to me now like the name of our mage, how I made my first friends or when the seasons were. Like I said in the beginning though, my memories of WK are alive. I let them change, they can leave and they can come back.  

I left the hard drive with most of my photos back home sorry. Here are some that I do have: Us trying to hitch a ride (we succeeded). Me crammed in the back of a bakkie with Lana on the way to an awesome camping trip. The start of a painting of my favorite “mountain”. Also, I did manage to find a picture of me as Jane from Tarzan, story comes next!

Most embarrassing moment at Waterford?

So many to pick from! Once I was reading a poem during assembly and my hands would not stop shaking the paper I was reading from (note to self: memorize your poems when performing). I was so nervous, I’m pretty sure the microphone even picked up the paper shaking.

Another short story: for inhouse leavers ceremony I drew the short stick for our corridor’s re-enactment of Tarzan and was to be Jane. I wore our bathroom’s mop as a wig, stole a bra and a skirt from a friend and really just made a fool of myself in front of everyone! That’s what WK was for me. So many moments I just look back and laugh at what a crazy, wild time I had.

WK crush?

In hindsight there were so many amazing people at Waterford. We all know there can be quite some drama at WK. I was so worried about what other owes or fros would think about who I liked I ended up totally sleeping on some really amazing people that I really got along with. If I could do it all again I would go for the ones who made me laugh.

What’s your favorite ’90s jam?

Lol I’m probably a bit too young for the 90s. I’m all about those DJ Wazzza tracks. Still listening to those even now. I’d give: Desires of the Heart (Buy'ekhaya) ft Likhwa Ndlovu & Fezile Mnisi a listen, you won’t regret it. It’s a great chillout song with a lot of talent and power. I’d recommend listening to it on a Friday, right after you finish work or school and just get back to your place. That or late at night with a cup of tea as you browse the internet. That’s how I’d do it at least.

Who was in your WK #squad (friend group)

The guys in my year group were all pretty good friends. Our corridor (FAVELA) was super close and I really felt like they were my brothers. We’d hang out in each other’s rooms and share music, movies and good times. Also I have to have to shout out the DOTA squad. Basically we’d hook up all our junky laptops to each other using LAN and play old video games together. One of these old games was called DOTA. We’d fit like 9 guys in a tiny room and just have the time of our lives. Many of us stay in touch and even play some video games together to this day.

Favourite teacher/Most hilarious teacher?

I would be CRIMINAL if I did not say that Mr. Opiem would probably beat Trevor Noah any day as a stand-up comic if he ever decided to make the career switch. Really, I have a feeling he knows his jokes might make people die of laughter. Its heroic in a way, in order to save lives, he teaches physics and spends most of his effort restraining his comedic powers.

< < < Back to other Alumni Profiles