Alumni Profiles Series: Mike Hunnicutt

After growing up in Miami, Florida, Mike Hunnicutt completed his bachelor’s and Ph.D. in chemistry at Duke in 1980 and 1984, respectively. During his time at Duke, Mike worked in the lab of Dr. Charles (Charlie) Lochmüller doing analytical and organic chemistry work. After a postdoc at the University of Utah with Dr. Joel Harris, Mike moved to Ohio and worked for Procter & Gamble for a number of years before transitioning to a position at Pfizer. He eventually left the industry setting to take a position at Virginia Commonwealth University. Now retired, Mike currently serves on the Duke Alumni Board of Directors and takes an active role in supporting other first-generation college students at Duke.

What originally brought you to Duke?

I came to Duke because I wanted to be a physician. I had worked as an ER orderly in high school, and I was really excited about the opportunity to be a doctor. One of the doctors encouraged me to apply to Duke, and the chemistry program really interested me. Duke granted me an interview, and something special just hit when I toured campus and saw the chapel for the first time driving up and around Duke Chapel circle. I knew this was it.

What did you study at Duke?

I was a chemistry major pre-med, and it took me probably 2.5 years to figure out how to be a good student here, but I always loved laboratory courses and chemistry was my home. The lab was where I thrived. My senior year I was doing my independent study and met Charles Lochmüller. He was my undergraduate research advisor. He and I clicked, and I worked in his lab during my time in undergrad. He also helped me find a part-time job in the Triangle during school that became full-time after graduation. Charlie also really encouraged me to apply to graduate school here at Duke. When I was invited to start, my boss out at Research Triangle Park told me, “You should go, right now.” That’s how I got to graduate school, and it was clear to me right from the start that I would work for Dr. Lochmüller. He was gruff but an outstanding researcher. The work I did with him was familiar and interesting, and he gave me the space to define the research area I wanted to go into.

What was the focus of your research with Dr. Lochmüller?

It was liquid chromatography. At that time the current technology, using very small, chemically modified particles and high pressures, was at its infancy. There was a lot of interest in chemistry to modify the surfaces of micro-porous silica gel used in the chromatography. The gel has a very porous three-dimensional structure, and we synthesized a whole class of molecules that had fluorescent properties. This class of molecules, when in close contact, would undergo energy transfer to fluoresce at a longer wavelength, so all of a sudden they became molecular rulers in this massively porous thing. We also studied nanosecond fluorometers. Dr. Lochmüller collaborated closely with Dr. Joel Harris at the University of Utah, who became my postdoc mentor. In Joel’s lab during my postdoc, he studied laser spectroscopy, but he wanted me to set up a surface chemistry lab so they could do their own chemical synthesis. I set that up so they could chemically modify a whole number of things, and he taught me laser spectroscopy.

What did you do next?

My postdoc was a two-year fellowship so I got to teach, but during that time and during my time at Duke there was no foundational support that you need to be successful in academia (like grant-writing classes). That whole part was invisible to me. There was also a salary differential, and, if I was intentionally going into academia, I would have selected a different postdoc where I wasn’t doing the same surface chemistry work, but instead was pushed into some newer chemistries that would’ve given me a safer start if I was going to go to an R1 research university.

So, my wife and I transitioned to Ohio where she was completing the research for her Ph.D., and I was able to start at Procter & Gamble in an analytical group as part of their research and product development. That’s how I got to where I was. I spent 10 years at Procter & Gamble in consumer products, and then switched to healthcare, which is where my heart was, to support drug discovery before moving into over-the-counter products. P&G was very team oriented and very rewarding. But I wanted to be in healthcare, so I moved to a company that was ultimately bought by Pfizer, and I worked all over, from regulatory work to drug discovery. I was there about 15 years.

After I retired from industry, I had promised myself that I would try to teach. Going from industry to academia, I was still working hard—if anything, I was working harder. But in the end, it was all about the students. After three semesters working as an adjunct, I applied for and accepted a position at Virginia Commonwealth University. My focus was that for every student I worked with, when they interviewed for a job, they would have something special about them. I decided to teach only lab classes—instrumental analysis and qualitative analysis—so I could get to know each student individually, and I would have lab access in order to take on undergrads and allow them the chance to start off in research.

I believe that you can be transformational in someone’s life whether you’re in private industry or academia. But academia is a special place to interact with a population that never changes age. Students are primed for uptake, and they are at a time in life where you can inspire them. You can really change their outlook and areas of interest. The way you relate to students can allow them to see possibilities they would never even have imagined for themselves before, and it’s because of how you work with them. That’s what made it so rewarding.

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How do you find ways to still stay involved with students now that you are retired from teaching?

I started coming back to Duke and working with The Graduate School and the Alumni Board to mentor undergrads and graduates. It comes down to helping the next generation explore what they want to do and enabling them to move on with guidance and counseling. It’s about being a resource, and I love interacting with the students and the faculty.

In your career, what was one of the most rewarding things you were a part of?

There are two things, and I would value them equally. It is really exciting to be part of a team and deliver something to the market that started off as a concept. You need all these different disciplines to work and to work successfully to turn out a product that’s actually successful and continues on. A concrete example is my first assignment at Procter & Gamble. I worked on liquid laundry detergent, and the new idea was that we would take all the dyes and perfumes out and we would call it Cheer Free. This whole concept was way ahead of its time, but this was 1985-86 and that product is still on the market.

The other I would hold equally: it is working with people and helping them progress. This could be anything from helping them acquire new skills so they can take on different positions or working with people on their people skills or management. Being in a position where you can nominate and support the people working around you, and help move them into positions where they can grow.

What was one of your favorite memories of Duke?

It’s hard to pick just one…but one is of course whenever we win a national championship. You also always remember the people and the experiences. When I was in undergrad that was the first time I got to volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters and that was special. Volunteering has stuck with me. It has to do with not just doing things for yourself, but gaining satisfaction from doing things for others, because you can see the effect it has on them. You do this as a student, but we also have a choice every day of how we will be present for people. It’s all about the people.

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AUTHOR

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Hannah Thrash

Ph.D. student, Molecular Cancer Biology

Hannah Thrash is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the molecular cancer biology program housed within the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology. She is a member of the Pendergast lab and studies the work of a novel transcription factor complex that promotes migration of cancer cells, regulated by ABL kinases, cell stress response molecules. In her free time, Hannah enjoys reading and cooking.