Siblings in Science

One might expect Saint Francis Professor Dr. Amy Obringer to place some wise, motherly pressure on her children to “follow the science,” so to speak, and enroll in programs where Obringer has guided hundreds of students to success.

She influences them, no doubt, but most pressure from Mom is much more subtle.

“She lets us figure it out,” Saint Francis sophomore Gianna Obringer said. 

Subtle pressure works. Five of Amy’s six children have spent at least some time studying at Saint Francis. Olivia Obringer graduated from Saint Francis in 2021 en route to becoming a veterinarian, and the two youngest Obringers are currently working on degrees: Elijah is a senior pursuing a degree in Biology Pre-Med and Gianna is a sophomore working on degrees in Biology and Environmental Science.

While they all come from the same starting place—the Obringer home in Decatur, Indiana—Olivia, Elijah and Gianna each have different passions, proving there’s more than one way to take science and run.

The Vet

Olivia Obringer’s interest in veterinary medicine blossomed at Saint Francis. She joined her mother’s annual medical mission trips to the Dominican Republic as a high school student, a college student and now a full-time emergency room veterinarian based in Northville, Michigan.

“I like the fact I get to treat all types of animals,” she said. “I see dogs, cats, birds—I just had a goat that came in on emergency.”

The variety of ailments, and the challenge of figuring them out, intrigues her.

“I like the vastness of all the different anatomy that I have to deal with,” she said. “And I like the mystery of not knowing what they have and how I am the one that is able to solve that mystery and make them feel better. I never know what is going to walk in that door.”

Olivia strives to provide animal owners with extra empathy. 

“Working in emergency where the costs are higher and it’s an unexpected emergency, I try to put people at ease,” she said.

The Ex-Mechanic

Elijah Obringer is well on his way to becoming a doctor, something inconceivable a few years ago.

“When I graduated high school, I was a mechanic for a year; I had no intentions of going to college,” he said.

Elijah learned a lot about mechanics but yearned for a more human-facing career. “Some days, you’re just working on a car for eight hours; I really missed the human interaction,” Elijah said. 

Mechanics and medicine are not as far apart as they might seem, Elijah said.

“I enjoyed mechanics, working with tools and fixing things,” he said. “Medicine presents similar concepts of problems, and in some aspects of medicine you have tools. You’re diagnosing the problem and figuring out what to do.”

Elijah foresees a career in emergency medicine or a trauma unit and possibly teaching. 

“I’ve taken a lot of my mother’s classes and they’re very, very hard classes,” he said. “So, I’ve learned a lot. It pushes me, but just like the other pre-meds in the group, we’ve become a close-knit friend group. We know the classes are hard but studying together is one of the best memories I’ve made here.”

The Zookeeper

Gianna Obringer spent the summer of 2026 at the Fort Wayne Zoo, training sharks. She had other duties in the aquatics department, but her time with the sharks stood out and reinforced her desire to pursue marine biology.

Gianna originally planned to follow older sister Olivia into the veterinary field. Marine biology projects in 4-H slowly pulled her that way. “There’s just something about marine animals that piques my interest.”

She zeroed in on her future path working with zoo aquatics mentor Emily Boll, dealing with Indo-Pacific and other sharks. Gianna will continue working at the zoo through this school year. 

“I enjoyed working with just me and my mentor, who’s the aquarist there,” Gianna said. “I was mostly in the aquarium.”

On the last day of her summer internship, she fed the black tip sharks for the first time.

“My mentor surprised me,” she said. “They gave me a lot of opportunities, but I did like the sharks—feeding the black tips was probably the most exciting thing.”