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Meet Paige Knight '26: mother, wife, former Navy corpsman, and a 26-year-old Keene State senior pursuing her dream of a career in occupational safety.

Call her non-traditional. By definition, she is that.

But here, where everyone is welcome, anything is possible, and opportunity is never too late, we call students like Paige resilient, courageous, and driven. She is that, too.

A senior in the College’s Safety & Occupational Health Applied Sciences program, Paige presented research findings this summer at the NH-LIFT Summit at the Mount Washington Hotel. Paige participated as a Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) student.

Examining possible gaps in academic lab biosafety at Keene State was the focus of her grant-funded research, which was intended to help educators develop a system to streamline risk assessment.

In the Navy, Paige served six years as a corpsman specializing in optics and making gas mask inserts.

This semester, Paige has an ambitious five-class course load. The daily responsibility of being a mother doesn’t make anything easier, and it didn’t make starting college later ideal, but in the end, “it was beneficial for me,” Paige says.

“I was worried that I wouldn't be able to keep up, or that, because I spent so much time away from academia, I wouldn't perform as well as my peers who went to college straight from high school. But I found I was more ready than I imagined, and at Keene State, I was made to feel like any other student.”

Betting on yourself and having the right people in your corner makes anything possible. For Paige, those people include her husband, EJ; her many professors, especially her faculty and research mentor, Dr. Loren Launen; and her older brother Zach, “who has always been a good guide in life.”

Keene State works with non-traditional students to identify unique needs and make education attainable for adult learners, parents like Paige, veterans, and students with disabilities.

Among Fall 2025 degree-seeking undergraduates at Keene State, 60 are ages 25-34, and 24 are ages 35 or older.

“I was having an awful time finding an internship that didn’t require me to move or to leave my daughter.

“Dr. Launen takes time to get to know her students and their interests. Recognizing my interest in biology, she approached me with an opportunity to do some microbiology lab work,” Paige reflects.

Professor Launen helped Paige secure an internship locally that fit her busy life schedule.

Paige credits Professor Launen with going above and beyond to provide schedule flexibility and inspiration, and instilling in her a “self-belief that I now carry with me.”

“Without everything Dr. Launen did for me, I would never have had the confidence to do the research I did or present at a major conference. I was apprehensive; it all seemed impossible, something so above me.”

Says Launen, “Paige has so much experience from her time in the Navy, and she is putting it to great use in her studies, and she is following her passion for science. I’m confident she will put her skills and general know-how to bringing science-based solutions into the safety work she has planned, and that this work will improve, and perhaps even save, lives.”

The NH-LIFT network includes representatives from the state’s 17 colleges and universities, including Keene State. It is funded, ultimately, by the National Science Foundation to catalyze new research opportunities at the state’s higher education institutions.

“Paige is so talented, and without the NH LIFT funding, she would not have been able to do the work she did and is still doing,” Launen says. “It’s important to stress that to make things work for students, we must accommodate all students. That means accommodating the schedules of working parents.”

Today, Paige has an easier time looking at herself in the mirror and imagining a better future for her and her young family.

“Before the Navy, I had no direction, and during my time in the Navy, I was so focused on one thing that I let six years of my life fly by without having control over it. I was competitive to an unhealthy degree, and I didn’t like who I was becoming. I could be very harsh. I think it came from insecurities about my worth.

“Having Greta, my daughter, let me realize that I wasn’t just a cog in the machine; I was a person. She gave me the confidence to leave and be open to people, and to grow into a more understanding person, which has helped me learn in every aspect of life, including here at Keene State.”

Paige lives in Springfield, Vermont, an hour from Keene. She is expecting a second child, a son, in February. It will delay her graduation by one semester, a minor hitch in a circuitous educational journey she has bravely and insightfully authored and owned.

Note: Two Keene State undergraduate SURE students also presented at the NH-LIFT Summit: Kate McAvoy, a public health and biology double major, and Sam Elkins, an environmental and biology double major. Working directly with the greater Keene community, Kate sought to better understand food insecurity in rural N.H. communities. Sam’s collaborative research project examined bacterial composition on sedimental soil samples from seagrass.

Keene State chemistry professor Dr. Jim Kraly is the NH-LIFT co-principal investigator.

Support for NH LIFT is provided by the National Science Foundation Award #2412054.