Note: Kylie Overstreet is part of a small group of high-achieving seniors who are being highlighted in our 2025 Hatter Headliners series.

No one would need a microscope to discover that Class of 2025 Biology major Kylie Overstreet achieved much at Stetson.

Overstreet, who also minored in Studio Art, maintained a 4.0 GPA, making the Dean’s List every semester. She served as secretary of Beta Beta Beta (TriBeta), the biological honor society; and presented her senior research in March at an Association of Southeastern Biologists conference. She completed a clinical research internship with Mayo Clinic and presented more research this spring at the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference 2025, one of the nation’s largest multidisciplinary research conferences. Also, there was an internship at the Volusia County Medical Examiner’s office, and she is continuing clinical research with Mayo this summer. 

Plus, for good measure, Overstreet was a four-year member of the Stetson women’s soccer team. In her first year, she was named to the ASUN Academic Honor Roll. As a senior, she was a starter in all 19 games she played.

Arriving from Oakleaf High School in Orange Park, a stone’s throw from the Stetson campus, Overstreet was an academic and athletic ace who now has a future in medicine even brighter than her standout past.

Yet, while Overstreet will smile with pride about her college achievements, she’s quicker to acknowledge others — her peers and professors.

“I would definitely say that as I look back at my time at Chaudoin [residence hall], the biggest things that jump out to me are, No. 1, the people that I met, as well as the professors and the bonds I was able to form with them,” she said in May, days before graduating.

Good first-year fortune, she added, brought her a roommate and soccer teammate who is likely to become a lifelong friend. And with help around campus, Overstreet was able to navigate the challenging terrain of studies and sports. “I really felt like I was able to enjoy my time at Stetson as a college athlete. … I feel very blessed to have been able to continue my studies and develop relationships with my professors to where they were understanding when I was away [traveling with the team to games],” she explained.

Career Calling

Then, as a junior, Overstreet found her career calling under a microscope during research directed by Associate Professor Roslyn Crowder, PhD.

The fall-semester course was “Enhanced Research Experience in Cancer Biology,” where Overstreet encountered something unexpected in her experiment results: Cancer cells died when introduced to the compound she created. The research connected how plant growth conditions can alter phytochemicals produced, which in turn change the anticancer properties of the plant.

“With Dr. Crowder’s course, we discovered that the way plants are actually grown can affect their impact on cells, which is some­thing I didn’t expect to have such a profound effect. It was very obvious. ‘OK, if a plant is growing in these conditions, it won’t kill cells as well as if it was grown in other conditions.’ … That can impact the medical field.”

Overstreet had originally chosen Stetson because of its small class sizes and opportunities for personal growth. In the end, that setting delivered.

Now, Overstreet is intent on becoming part of the medical field — specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

Her parting words: “I really do want to become a doctor of oncology, and I’m kind of set in that path. And I think that if I had gone anywhere else, I might not have really discovered my drive as a person.”

-Michael Candelaria