Moving back to her hometown, Linfield Professor Anne Kruchten will be transferring to the College of St. Scholastica after this academic year.

Kruchten has enjoyed the past ten years at Linfield.  She traveled with students across the world and has gone with them to present research. She said it is really fulfilling to have students graduate and get into graduate school, get jobs, and write back later on.

She teaches biology and is Linfield’s pre-med counselor. Many of her students are sad for her to leave.

The College of St. Scholastica is in Duluth, Minnesota. “I will be in a similar position as at Linfield. It is close to home which is always nice. My husband and I lived there for ten years before moving out here,” Kruchten said.

As a cell biologist and bio-chemist, one of her projects includes pediatric cancer research where she examines the mechanisms by which cancer cells migrate and metastasize. The specific cancer that she is targeting is deadly and she wants to stop it as soon as she can.

Other projects of hers includes a wine microbiome project where she and a colleague sample soil from various vineyards to what kind of microbes are there. She also conducts educational research on how biology students learn the best.

On Tuesday she announced that the science department received a $650,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for future STEM students.

Kruchten said she has really enjoyed her time at Linfield and has had outstanding students over the years with whom she hopes to keep in contact.