Chelsea Retzloff is a professional dancer and a scientist, from Eureka, California. Chelsea has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance and a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry, from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Chelsea's training as a dancer began at age three, when she started at the Studio of Dance Arts under Jane Morgan. While in high school, she trained in San Francisco under Lines Contemporary Dance Company’s Director, Alonzo King; at the Kirov Academy in Washington D.C.; and at the California State Summer School for the Arts. While in college, Chelsea auditioned for and was selected to perform in thirty five dance pieces over a four year period. During her senior year, she was part of the UC Santa Barbara Student Dance Company that toured throughout California and Montana for the American College Dance Festival. Both dance pieces in which she performed were chosen by adjudicators for highest honors - to be performed in the Gala concert.
While in the UC Santa Barbara Student Dance Company she learned a varied repertoire by Keith Johnson, Stephanie Nugent, Tonia Shimin, and Valerie Huston. In addition, Chelsea was selected by the dance faculty to perform the historic solo, "Harmonica Breakdown", by Jane Dudley, as reset by Nancy Colahan. In August of 2007, Chelsea joined Jerry Pearson's Santa Barbara Dance Theater and toured throughout China. She made her New York debut in 2008 performing with David Dorfman Dance at Lincoln Center Out of Doors.
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ChemistryChelsea's love affair with science began in junior high school when she first learned that life, as we know it, is made up of billions of little particles called atoms. Trying to make sense of her own life, she decided that each atom had its own personality and that the combination of different atoms was what made up the distinct aspects of her personality.
"Chelsea's love affair with science began when she first learned that life, as we know it, is made up of billions of little particles called atoms."
Inspired by her charismatic high school teacher, Weldon A. Benzinger, Chelsea's interest in chemistry and physics was cemented. Mr Benzinger's love for the subjects and his use of the Socratic method challenged Chelsea to figure out both the logical and creative aspects of chemistry. The "personalities" she had assigned to individuals atoms developed into fuller stories, with the layout of the periodic table being her guide to judge the characteristics and behavior of each group and period of elements.
College brought about a whole new level of thinking. Starting off as a dance major, the first dance piece she performed in the fall of 2003 was about the different states of matter. With chemistry still in the back of her mind, Chelsea was inspired to think about molecules in motion in addition to having distinct personalities. When she decided to take the "General Chemistry" series for fun, her professor, David Harris, noticed her affinity for the material and asked Chelsea about her major. When she said, "Dance," he responded, "Well, Chelsea, you are a chemistry major now, too."
Studying organic chemistry with Dr. Bruce Lipshitz further ignited her passion. Dr. Lipshitz’s high expectations and unique teaching methods challenged Chelsea to rise to the next level. All of the mechanism they studied involved the movement of electrons through and between molecules. Along with flash cards and a dry erase board, Chelsea would spend hours assigning each of the molecules a personality and then choreographing each of the "attacks" based on the way the different molecules behaved. This ‘physical mnemonic’ made the material fun and combined the creative aspects of both dance and chemistry in Chelsea's life.
"Chelsea’s love for dance inspired her to think about molecules in motion. This ‘physical mnemonic’ made the material fun and combined the creative aspects of both dance and chemistry in Chelsea's life."
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The pattern continued throughout thermo-dynamics, quantum mechanics and kinetics. Three more great teachers, Dr. Joan Shea, Dr. Michael Bowers and Dr. Steven K. Buratto led her way.
Dr. Shea was Chelsea's first female science teacher and her inspiration for becoming a professor in the future. Her teaching style was straight forward, fair, fun, and challenging. Shea's class was rewarding and Shea is the type of teacher Chelsea aspires to be.
At the suggestion of Dr. Harris, her first year chemistry teacher, Chelsea decided to try research and asked Dr. Buratto if there was any space in his lab for an already busy undergrad. Being a collegiate athlete and chemistry major himself, Dr. Buratto understood Chelsea's time commitments to dance and paired her with Donald Dunn III to work on Single Molecule Spectroscopy. Throughout her senior year, Donald worked with Chelsea's crazy schedule and taught her about single molecule research, including the intricacies of lasers, data collection, how to manage the many obstacles that arise when working with specialized confocal microscopes, and the analysis techniques used in graduate level research.
In her senior year, Chelsea also worked on the alternative energy fuel car developed by UCSB for the ACHIE competition with Gregory White, Lyle Kaplan-Reining and others. Placing third in the Regional competition, the continuing students moved on to the nationals in the fall of 2007.
Chelsea knew that her two passions were melding together when the graduate students, professors and peers from the chemistry department came to dance shows and the dance professors came to the car competition and presentations made in the chemistry department.
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Currently Chelsea works for MacArthur Dance project, performing “Find Me in Here”, a work by Ester M. Palmer, and the Hudson Vagabond Puppets, performing puppet ballets for children. At the same time, she is also auditioning like crazy for other dance projects.
To keep up with chemistry, Chelsea tutors high school and university level students. She plans to get her Ph.D. in chemistry and teach at the university level.
