Amphibious: relating to, living in or suited for both land and water. While fourth-year veteran swimmer Jen Eurich does not literally fit the definition, for all intents and purposes, she nearly does. She has dedicated the past 16 years to swimming and currently competes for the Case Western Reserve University Spartans.

Since her first meet, Eurich has taken CWRU by storm. She also set a personal and school season best last season, when she recorded a 24.26 in the 50 free. Eurich consistently swims in the team relays with her strong freestyle times. As with many CWRU students, academics are also key as she has received University Athletic Association All-Academic recognition in her second and third years.

Even though she leads CWRU’s swimming team week in and week out, swimming was not always something Eurich thought she could excel in. She started at age six because of her sister’s presence in the sport and simply could not find success. When she was 12 years old, swimming suddenly clicked, and Eurich has not looked back since.

Perseverance in swimming is something Eurich has had to heavily deal with before and into college. She has suffered several back injuries, vocal cord dysfunction and a knee injury requiring reconstruction surgery.

Eurich said, “It’s taken a lot of resilience to get through practices, especially racing with vocal cord dysfunction because I can’t breathe and half the time can’t feel my legs after races. But I enjoy the challenge.”

Although swimming is a mostly individual sport—even in relays, swimmers compete one at a time—Eurich cited the team as the reason she comes back each year. She has grown each year, seeing people come and go. At this point, she considers herself the “mom” of the team.

With graduation looming next spring, Eurich also said, “I’ll definitely miss the people. I mean we all live together, we all eat together, we train together twenty hours a week so we are pretty much bonded together.”

Outside swimming, Eurich is also part of Delta Gamma (DG) and conducts biochemical research. In DG, she is the Director of Scholarship and the Director of Greek Year. She is part of several philanthropic events on campus, such as Anchor Splash, a competitive aquatic event. As far as research goes, Eurich has conducted glioblastoma cancer stem cell research at the Cleveland Clinic since her first year. She is currently performing preclinical testing of a drug for stem cells which she is really excited about.

Eurich said, “The thing I like most about research is the clinical applications of it; like how can this possibly benefit people in the future or how could this possibly improve patients prognoses.”
Eurich’s passion for research in the medical field and care for others led her to major in biochemistry. For her, it is fascinating to discover the chemistry that makes you able to live, think and breathe.

Eurich will be hoping to go to medical school once she graduates. There she hopes to narrow in on pathology and potentially autopsies which correlates with her previous and current research.