Curtis also wants to be a doctor one day, as well as a novelist, and is focusing her Watson year on gaining wisdom that will help make her a better healer and writer.

Through her travels to Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, and South Africa, the neuroscience and English major plans to study intergenerational trauma, or the passing down of trauma from one generation to the next. "Intergenerational trauma often affects populations that have faced warfare, famine, or displacement," she said recently in an interview. "There is no riper time to delve into that than now."

At the same time, she wants to learn how different cultures attempt to recover from brutality, terror, and deprivation. "How do people use non-medicinal ways, such as the arts, creative work, and community-building connections to one another-to heal from their trauma?" she said.

Curtis has personal experience with her Watson subject. She is half Chinese; her mother is from Beijing. During the Communist Revolution, the state stole her family's land, pushing them into extreme poverty. Two granduncles died of starvation and her grandaunt drowned herself. Subsequent generations of relatives, especially women, have struggled with higher rates of illnesses, Curtis said.

"It is a subject that I have been very fascinated by," she said, one that is fueling not only her interest in medicine, but also the exploration of her own wellbeing. "How can I be a cycle breaker? How can I grow? How can I prevent this trauma from being inherited by my progeny?" she said.

Not resolving pain from earlier generations can bear down on young people, especially a demographic she is close to: Chinese students in the US, who can face high-pressure academics and the cultural tradition of repressing emotional vulnerability. She is still grieving her best friend at Bowdoin-with whom she had bonded over their shared Chinese heritage-who died by suicide in 2024.

"I think going on the Watson is a way to understand myself and heal myself, as well as learn how to be a better healer," she said.