Meet the team: Darcy Kilvert
Introducing Darcy, student member of the DeNovocastrians iGEM team.
Darcy spent the first few years of his life in the north coast of NSW. As you might imagine, his parents openly accepted the hippie lifestyle that comes with living along the coast. Darcy said, “This upbringing has instilled in me a life-long passion and respect for the natural world.”
Though he has always been interested in science, it was not his first pick for a degree. Darcy originally started studying a Bachelor of Public Communications at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), until promptly realising the last thing he wanted to study on the planet was Public Communications.
After leaving UTS, Darcy started working in Bushland Regeneration which temporarily satiated his passion for the natural world and his need for cash-flow. He found that working a full-time job is a great way to force yourself into reflecting on what you want to do and, somewhere between swatting away insects and sweltering in the summer sun, he decided to study biology .
Darcy is now reaching his third and final year studying a Bachelor of Science, majoring in biology, at the University of Newcastle, and has found himself with more questions than answers.
“Science is a fickle lover; you can spend months on a project and go absolutely nowhere and sometimes it works perfectly.” — Darcy Kilvert
Darcy joined the iGEM team this year because it gave him the opportunity to get hands on experience and spend some time with professionals in the industry he wants to work in. His role in the team is to work towards cloning the benzene degradation cluster ‘benABCD’ from the environmental bacteria Rhodoccocus into lab strains of E. coli. When asked what the aim is for the overall project, Darcy said, “The aim is that one day we will be able to use these modified bacteria to remediate contaminated areas of land, I guess I still am working in bushland regeneration.”
A fun fact about Darcy is that, during his visits to Bougainville, Papua New Guinea (where his father lives), he has managed to contract Malaria twice, almost been washed down the flooding Sepik river and avoided getting kidnapped by winning a tightly contest ballot.
When he is not narrowly avoiding serious injury or worse, Darcy enjoys a good drink, especially with good company, and is counting the days until he can bust some moves on a dance-floor or start travelling again, saying, “I miss travelling, I’ve been to Africa and Asia but there are still continents to cover.”
