A Soccer-Playing, Sax-Rocking, Published Author

12/21/2009

Don’t tell Derek Stenquist ’06 that he has to choose among passions. At Rivers, he was the consummate Renaissance student, serving as freshman class president, playing in the jazz combo, volunteering for the Massachusetts Special Olympics, and earning three all-ISL honors for soccer.

As an undergrad at Dartmouth College, he has compiled an equally eclectic resumé. A senior biology major, he plays junior midfield for the Dartmouth soccer team, which has appeared in three NCAA tournaments during his four years in Hanover. He is director of Thetford Mentors, an afterschool program in which student-athletes tutor local elementary-school students. He plays lead alto sax in the jazz ensemble. And if that’s not enough, he’s a published researcher, with two journal articles to his name.

“I love being busy,” Stenquist says with a smile. “Even if that means having to study on the bus sometimes.”

Scientific research has been one of Stenquist’s main interests at Dartmouth. In the winter of 2008, he spent three months in the tropical forests of Costa Rica studying ecology. It wasn’t your typical research expedition – at one point, he had a mere five days to design a project, figure out how to use special computer-analysis software, and write up a report about it. “It was amazing to pick up all of those skills so quickly,” he says. “It was quite a rush.” His work occasionally involved some decidedly exotic activities, ranging from scuba diving in the midnight hour to wading through the sparkling blue waters of the Osa Peninsula.

This past August, two articles Stenquist co-wrote were published in the esteemed academic journals Physiological and Biochemical Zoology and Journal of Evolutionary Biology. (The full articles are available here and here.) The entries were based on other research he did that explored the physiological effect of increased testosterone on brown anole lizards. “Opportunities like that don’t come along very often, so the fact that I could take part was pretty unbelievable,” he says.

A case study in balancing academics and athletics, Stenquist was named an Academic All-Ivy this fall, an honor bestowed upon a select few undergraduates who “make a major contribution on their team” while maintaining a 3.0 GPA. He says that the students he tutors through Thetford Mentors seem to really look up to young scholar-athletes like himself. “You have a lot of kids in the program whose parents aren’t always around,” he says. “It’s great to have some college students who can show up and be good role models.”

Speaking about his own education, Stenquist is effusive about his time at Rivers, whether honing his sax chops with Philippe Crettien, talking soccer with Bob Pipe, or grappling with difficult science concepts in Stewart Pierson’s challenging physics class. “The fact that I don’t even like the subject speaks to how passionate Mr. Pierson is about teaching,” he says.

Indeed, Stenquist largely credits the inspirational people he met at Rivers with giving him the freedom to pursue his passions. “It seemed like everywhere I turned, I found an amazing faculty member who was there to help,” he says. “Rivers lets people who have far-ranging interests explore them to the fullest extent possible.”

And while the Hudson native plans to stay in the Northeast for medical school after college, he intends to take this next year to look at his options. Given his track record, it’s anyone’s guess where he’ll be. Researching reptiles in the Caribbean? Studying ecological systems in the rainforests of the Congo? Knowing him, wherever he is he’ll be keeping himself occupied, with a new adventure and a smile.