adam oken

As the head leader of the sea kayaking program at the Outdoor Program of Whitman College, I work and train teams of leaders to provide safe and adventurous trips. As the head leader, I take responsibility for the safety of the students who participate in the sea kayaking trips and work with two other leaders to make the trip exciting. Additionally, I coach the new sea kayak leaders for the Outdoor Program to amazing leaders on and off the water.

I worked as a commercial kayak guide and naturalist in the magnificent San Juan Islands in Northwest Washington during the summers. On a daily basis I led up to 10 guests on day, 2 day, 3 day, or 5 day expeditions providing knowledge about the ecology, wildlife, and history of the area as well as safety and leadership while kayaking.

As a lab assistant, I prepared stock solutions and gels for students before lab each week as well as provided guidance during lab. Additionally, as a writing fellow for Whitman, I presented feedback and commentary to student written lab reports for genetics lab.

Worked to produce the protein Fumarase C from DNA in order to crystallize it and obtain the structure via X-ray crystallography. We were attempting to crystalize the protein with its substarate, L-malate, in order to determine the active site residues and importance of active site waters in the mechanism. Techniques included plasmid cloning by PCR, restriction digests, agarose/SDS-page gel electrophoresis, transformations, affinity, size-exclusion, and ion exchange chromatography as well as many x-ray crystallography techniques to crystalize proteins Additionally, We tried to purify mammalian OSBP.

As a leadership duo, a co-leader and I led up to 12 teenager, ranging form 12-15 years old, on week long sea kayaking adventures in the San Juan Islands.