College of science student beauty: Kemper Talley ’11

August 20, 2024August 20, 2024

Whether it’s an emerging infectious disease that causes the next outbreak, a serious accident or deliberate misuse by a bad actor, biological threats pose an ever-increasing risk.

It’s the job of Kemper Talley ’11, a senior scientist at Raytheon BBN, to help ensure that the US government and Department of Defense are able to detect and mitigate those threats.

“The country’s chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) defense program focuses primarily on biological threats, and whether they occur naturally, accidentally or “It doesn’t change the fact that we have to be prepared,” Talley said. “The technologies I’m working on ensure preparedness for the inevitable bio threat.”

Talley’s work focuses on the detection and identification of biological hazards through DNA and RNA sequencing.

“Everything has fingers, especially,” he said. Thanks to advances in biotechnology, not only can DNA be read, it can be written and edited.

Some countries maintain biological weapons programs.

“It’s important for us to understand how that changes the landscape – the drugs that exist and the beneficial environment and the dangerous environment of things that can be produced as toxic substances or pathogens that can cause epidemics,” he said. .

“We expect that future wars, if they need to be fought, will need to be fought in a CBRN environment. Our goal is to be able to fight and win in those environments, that’s why these technologies are very important.”

Talley, who has loved science since elementary school, attended the South Carolina Governor’s School of Science and Mathematics (GSSM), a two-year residential high school that offers advanced education opportunities in science, mathematics and engineering.

He doesn’t let physics beat him

He failed his first physics exam.

“Physics would not beat me. I took it as a challenge,” said Talley, who studied physics during the two years he studied at GSSM, including quantum physics and thermodynamics.

Every GSSM student participates in a summer research experience between their junior and senior years. Talley was stationed at Clemson and worked with Emil Alexov, professor of biophysics and bioinformatics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, on protein-protein interactions.

“It was a fun job,” says Talley, whose wife Aliceann is also a Clemson graduate. “I didn’t intend to go to Clemson … but I decided that the job was very interesting and that I wanted to continue doing it.”

He participated in EUREKA!, a five-week summer research program for first-year Clemson Honors students. He continued to conduct research with Alexov throughout his time at Clemson, publishing five papers in biophysics as an undergraduate.

Because of the education he received at the Governor’s School, Talley was able to skip most of the early physics courses and take more advanced classes. During his sophomore year, he took quantum physics, a class usually taken by seniors.

It is not a regular lesson

“Clemson was kind to me early on, letting me take calorie-restricted courses and not forcing me to take regular courses,” he said. I had to get some paperwork signed at the end before he said, ‘Yes, you can substitute Physics 811 for Physics 122.’

Talley spent a year of his first job doing research. He has spent summers each at Clemson Research Park working on high-performance computing, the University of Central Florida for the Undergraduate Research Experience Program and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in experimental biophysics. .

While at Clemson, he was named a Goldwater Scholar and received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. After graduation, Talley spent the summer doing research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

“I wanted to go to Oak Ridge National Lab because I’ve always wanted to find a place where smart scientists come together and work on what they think is important and screw things up,” he said. new and exciting ways to ask tough questions.” . “I will say that where I am today, BBN, I have found something very close to it.”

In a joint program with UT and ORNL, Talley began a Ph.D. in biophysics before switching to energy science and engineering with a focus on nuclear science.

After receiving his Ph.D., he left school to work in industry and began working for FLIR, which was later acquired by Teledyne, where he developed radiation equipment and systems. radiation detection.

A world-changing event

“My world changed when Putin invaded Ukraine because we were asked to donate every radio device we could to the effort, and it would be my methods that used,” he said. “You know exactly what’s going on with your machine. You’ve done the best you can with the tools available at the time, but you always know that with more tools, you could have do something better. Fighting those problems and priorities in my life became something I had to deal with more and more as I entered the Department of Defense.”

Now, Talley said he is determined to deliver at the end of his projects something the government can use without having to touch it again.

“I had to learn not to let something perfect become the enemy of beauty and not be good enough. It’s better to have something that works 100% of the time with 80% success versus something that works 10% of the time with 100% success,” he said. “It’s just true for these guys with boots. down.”