Markelle Patterson

After serving four years in the Navy, her final assignments working as a nuclear field electrician and an instructor at the base in Saratoga Springs, Markelle Patterson was ready for a pretty big change.

That’s when she enrolled in the School of Health Sciences at Russell Sage College and took on Nutrition Science as her major.

“I’d always been obsessed with food,” she says. 

Her grandmothers were a major influence in her life. One grandmother was a home economics teacher and a great baker, while the other was a phenomenal home cook. Markelle also has Crohn’s disease, so her relationship with food needed to be serious.

She was able to attend Sage as part of the Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program. This is a grant-funded program sponsored by the New York State Department of Education to support talented and economically disadvantaged students pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics majors. 

Markelle and Sage became a good fit. 

“I love the place,” she says. “I like how well rounded the approach is. Professors share their opinions but then you’re encouraged to think for yourself.”  

She’s been able to dig into the hard science of nutrition, while also being exposed out in the community to programs that provide food and nutritional education to those who are most in need.

“And I’ve learned that you don’t have to be in clinical environments to do what I want to do,” she says. “For example, there are opportunities in my field in restaurants, telehealth, and sports nutrition. There’s so much out there because everybody eats.”

She only wishes she had been tuned into nutrition science earlier in her life. But today she has her Crohn’s under control. She’s operating at full strength and seeing all the possibilities waiting out there in her future.