It’s not easy to walk by Tetsuo Otsuki’s office, just inside the front entrance of Norris Hall of Chemistry. The door is usually open, and Dr. O always has a plateful of homemade cookies.

“He’ll offer cookies to anyone who’s walking by,” says Rachael Yuson Williams ‘04, a biochemistry major from Reseda. “I usually met with him every day, even if it was just to catch up. He was more than my research adviser—he was my professor, my counselor, my mentor.”

That tutelage paid off. Rachael recently graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a master's degree in health science. She's now a first-year medical student at Boston University.

Rachael met Dr. O when she was part of the Teachers and Occidental = Partners in Science program in high school. “I was impressed by how willing Dr. O was to give up one of his weekend days to work with high school students.”

Rachael, who worked in Dr. O’s lab since her freshman year, chose Occidental for its small size and diversity. “My father is African American and Korean and my mother is Chinese and Irish, so a school that embraced diversity was really important to me.”

Rachael's research involved synthesizing a simplified derivative of a molecule that could be used as an anti-tumor drug – work she presented at the Southern California and National Conferences on Undergraduate Research.

She credits Professor Otsuki for giving her a chance in the lab, and for continually challenging her to “think outside the box.” “I hadn’t taken organic chemistry in high school, so the first summer was slow going. Dr. O was very patient and really encouraged me.”

“If a student sees something in me through my work, that’s great,” he says. “It’s another reward for me—to see a student like Rachael bloom.”