Ilem Leisher `26, a New Jersey native, is only in his fifth semester at Grinnell. As a transfer student from Kalamazoo College in Michigan, who has also studied abroad, Leisher has packed an unusual amount into a short time.
“There’s a couple of very fundamental parts of my identity that drive pretty much all of my decisions, whether it be around school or social life or habits — anything,” said Leisher. “One of those is exploration, like a curiosity to learn things, curiosity to see things and experience things and to satisfy my senses.”
Leisher’s curiosity and work ethic are deeply embedded into who he is and what he does, though they haven’t always come naturally.
He said that everything from his physics major to his participation on the track team boils down to those two fundamental pieces.
“The point is to see the overlap across all of it, how generally you can approach different problems with the same set of skills,” he said. “And I think that very much extends beyond classes. I think track is extremely important to my development as a worker.”
At the age of 13, Leisher was already battling substance addiction, particularly a dependence on nicotine and cannabis. Leisher said that he knew where he was in life wasn’t going to get him to where he wanted to be.
“At a certain point when I was 13, I kind of just saw the path in front of me,” said Leisher. “I looked at where I was and where I wanted to be and I was like there’s literally no way to get there like this, it’s impossible. So I think that was probably the thing I worked hardest at in my life and that really spawned this work ethic that I have now.”
This work ethic he developed eventually led him to Grinnell after his first year. He had the opportunity to speak with Grinnell track coach Jeff Pedersen `02, who recruited him to the team. Kalamazoo College did not have an official track program, making Grinnell’s program a significant draw.
Grinnell has since allowed him to grow not only as a scholar, but as an athlete as well. Leisher said that the moment when the men’s team won the indoor conference championship after a 30-year dry spell was one of the best of his life.
“Athletics is so addicting, because that feeling doesn’t come from anything else,” he said. “I know how much work I put into it and I know how much work my team has put in and I know I could not have done more. I’ve been building up to that for eight years of my life.”
True to his core values of exploration and curiosity, track and physics are not all Leisher has pursued. He plays three instruments, piano, guitar and most recently drums, and was part of the band that won Battle of the Bands this year.
He has also been learning Russian, inspired by his Ukrainian heritage, going so far as to nearly complete the Russian major and study abroad in Kyrgyzstan.
He has also taken classes in linguistics and philosophy, and recently reconsidered his longstanding reluctance to take an economics class.
“I have a whole thing that philosophy is my true passion, but physics is just the medium of pursuing philosophy,” said Leisher.
With his inclination toward math and coding, physics has become the way Leisher pursues knowledge.
After graduation, he will join the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a research technician at a neuroscience lab.
He said being a research technician appeals to him because the methodologies mirror those of physics and the questions it raises, particularly around consciousness, are ones he has long wanted to explore.
From there, he is weighing a masters at MIT against pursuing a PhD elsewhere, though he said he is keeping an open mind about where the work takes him.
No matter which way he goes, Leisher is certain he will keep pursuing curiosity and exploration.
