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While many students who earn a degree in biology go on to work in hospitals, at medical equipment companies, zoos and biotech companies, one biology student graduated from Loyola in 2005 with a passion for something else: cooking.

This passion eventually led alumna Chrissy Camba, 31, to become a contestant on Bravo’s “Top Chef: Seattle,” season 10.

Camba decided to send in an audition tape to “Top Chef” after her friends encouraged her.

During the audition tape, Camba showed her quirky and energetic personality.

“I know that I was extremely tired [when I filmed the audition tape], because it was late and I was just like, ‘Alright, I need to do this,’” she said. “I remember I could not open a jar up and at some point, I had thrown a pumpkin to show how much I wanted to be on ‘Top Chef,’ but it didn’t break – it just kind of hit the ground and rolled away.”

To Camba’s surprise, she was later contacted to be a contestant on the show.

“From a casting perspective … we knew kind of immediately that she was a great personality,” said “Top Chef” Executive Producer Nan Strait. “She was very easy to work with and was very friendly … She’s very funny and very personable, which is a good personality for TV and [a good personality] to be a chef.”

“Top Chef” Supervising Producer Meri Haitkin agreed.

“As you might imagine, some people hate being in the confines of competition reality shows,” Haitkin said. “[But] she handled it with grace and ease. She’s definitely in the category of people that came to roll with the punches and that certainly sets her apart from a producer’s standpoint.”

Haitkin shared one of her most memorable moments with Camba.

“There was a time [when] I was in the cast house gathering a couple of the chefs … [and] Chrissy leapt out of the cabinet that she was hiding in, causing me to scream,” Haitkin said. “I’m sure that was one of her prouder off-camera moments.”

Not only was Camba’s personality a good fit for “Top Chef,” but her skills as a chef also stood out from other contestants.

“She’s an executive chef [at Bar Pastoral] and that’s one of the things we look for [in contestants],” Strait said. “She works in Chicago, which is a very competitive city [and] she had staged (similar to interning, when a person works for free to learn about a job) at some of the best restaurants in the country. It is important that no one gets on ‘Top Chef’ that can’t actually compete.”

Despite the level of success Camba has achieved in the cooking industry, she hasn’t always wanted to be a chef.

“Food has always been a central part of growing up for me,” Camba said. “[But] I never thought I was going to be a chef … I actually wanted to be a neurosurgeon.”

After job shadowing a professional neurosurgeon during high school, Camba decided that was the career she wanted to pursue.

“Biology was the plan,” said Camba, from Hoffman Estates, Ill. “That was my path going into Loyola. I had researched and heard from people that [Loyola] had a really good program for what I wanted.”

But the biology and chemistry lab classes taught Camba more than just how to distinguish mitosis from meiosis.

“I’d gotten into Loyola and really loved the lab classes,” Camba said. “[Cooking] is very much like that testing, experimenting, documenting type of method.”

She added that following instructions in Loyola’s lab classes was very similar to following a recipe. However, mixing ingredients became more interesting to Camba than mixing chemicals.

Camba’s friend and former classmate, Ramsen Azizi, 31, described Camba’s study habits.

“We were both in the same chemistry class [and] one time we were outside on campus and we had a big test the next day so I was like, ‘Ok I’m going to go study,’ and she was like, ‘I think I’m going to go home and make some fresh pasta,’” said Azizi, who graduated from Loyola the same year as Camba with a degree in biology and a minor in chemistry, and is now the chief surgical resident at St. Joseph Hospital in Chicago. “So I went home and studied and she called and said, ‘Hey do you want some pasta?’ … Lo and behold, years later she became a chef. That moment was very telling.”

Friend Steven Nwe, 32, described a similar experience with Camba.

“When we would study, she would say, ‘Oh I can’t study right now, I need to cook,’” said Nwe, who graduated a year ahead of Camba with a degree in economics and a minor in biology. “She made such amazing food for us and we would always worry because she would be cooking [and not studying], but she would always pull through. You could definitely tell in the beginning what she loved to do. She loved cooking and she loved to share her cooking skills.”

Camba admitted that she doesn’t remember what her grade point average (GPA) was when she graduated, which she said was “an indicator that I wasn’t interested in following all my friends to med school.”

“After [graduating], I don’t know what happened, but being a doctor didn’t interest me anymore,” Camba said.

Instead of following “the plan” of pursuing medical school, Camba decided to take some time off to think about her career.

“In the couple years after I graduated, some friends were in med school [and] I was at Starbucks trying to figure it out,” Camba said. “I didn’t want to go down a path and then realize this isn’t what I want to do with my life.”

Finally, Camba entered the cooking industry — with no formal training or education from a culinary school — when she was 24 years old.

She said her mother was disappointed, but supportive.

“I [didn’t] want to push her to be a doctor,” said Camba’s mother, Pressie Camba, who has been a nurse at the Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill., for 14 years. “I said, ‘Go ahead darling, make it.’”

“Knowing that Chrissy would prosper in whatever she will do, it was okay with me,” Pressie said.

Nwe was also supportive of Camba’s decision to pursue a career in the cooking industry.

“I think it’s tough for someone to really have the courage to go out and do what they want to do,” Nwe said. “It takes a lot of self-realization to take that leap. It’s even harder to be at that point and say, ‘I want to do something that I love,’ and I think [Camba] really did that.”

Home Bistro’s Executive Chef Joncarl Lachman offered Camba her first job in the cooking industry.

“He gave me my first chance to stage, knowing I had no prior experience,” Camba said. “He would tell me what to do and I would follow him.”

Camba staged for one day, and she said that night Lachman sat her down and offered her a job to work at Home Bistro (3404 N. Halsted Street).

“The thing about [cooking] is that you get so many people that get nervous and mess up,” Lachman said. “She was fearless. She kind of reminded me of me; I wanted to cook and I knew how to cook.”

Since then, Camba has staged and worked at several Chicago restaurants, including Bin 36 (339 N. Dearborn St.),Vincent (1475 W. Balmoral Ave.), Alinea Restaurant (1723 N. Halsted St.), Bouchon (1958 N. Damen Ave.), Boka (1729 N. Halsted St.), Blackbird (619 W. Randolph St.) and Bar Pastoral (2947 N. Broadway), which opened Nov. 12 with Camba as the executive chef.

Although Camba was eliminated from “Top Chef” in episode four, which aired Wednesday Nov. 28, Nwe and Azizi said they are still very proud of her and that she will grow from the experience.

“When you get something at a national level like this, it really validates what you’ve been working so long and hard for,” Azizi said. “Once you go through something like this, you look at yourself and it motivates you because people expect more of you … I think [her experience on “Top Chef” will] pick her up to a much higher level as far as what it’ll push her to do.”

Nwe agreed.

“She [was] representing Chicago, Loyola and our group of friends. I think she [was] the perfect person to do that,” Nwe said. “It’s the beginning of an awesome career for her … She’s a testament that if you do something that you love, then you’ll ultimately be really successful in what you do.”