Imagine being an international student-athlete, traveling alone overseas to attend a college sight unseen, and then arriving amidst a global pandemic that limited your ability to make new friends. Such was the journey to Bucknell for Cristina Canales, who now four years later has become a regular in the lineup for the Bison women’s golf team and a Dean’s List student who will be heading to Yale next year to work in their prestigious neuroscience lab.
Cristina’s father, Jose Antonio, is CEO of the multinational company Viscofan, which manufactures casings for sausages and other food items. A native of Spain, Jose Antonio spent several years in Sao Paulo, Brazil heading up the company’s South American division, and his wife, Maria, gave birth to their two children there, an older son Jaime and then two years later, Cristina. When Cristina was three, the family moved back to Bilbao, a northern coastal city in Basque Country. Not long after, she was introduced to the sport of golf.
Both parents are avid golfers, and Cristina, Jaime, and a cousin on their mom’s side began to knock some golf balls around at a young age. Cristina quickly began to show some proficiency, although she recalls with a laugh that her talent was not necessarily inherited.
“My dad is not very good,” Cristina says. “He tries his best, but he can’t practice because he’s always working and doesn’t have the time. And then my mom plays every day and she’s not very good either, but they just love to play golf. Me and my brother and my cousin grew up together and the family is very close, so we also started playing golf.”
Her family’s golf club had a six-hole par-three course, which provided an ideal spot to learn and play in youth tournaments. Cristina often played the smaller course with her father, and then eventually graduated to nine-hole and 18-hole events. She often found herself playing against kids older than her, as no one in Cristina’s age group had yet reached that level.
In addition to playing at her club, Cristina later became a two-year captain of the golf team at the American School of Bilbao. Her team finished second at the 2018 National Championship, and in 2019 she won an individual regional championship.
Somewhat surprisingly, playing college golf in the United States was not in Cristina’s original plans. Older brother Jaime was off studying business in Madrid and having a blast, and Cristina wanted to follow in his footsteps and join the fun. But her father intervened. She had become good enough at golf to get some Division I offers but was a bit burned out from playing so many tournaments throughout high school. Cristina at least kept college golf as a possibility in the back of her mind, and then a two-month-old email sitting in her inbox changed her path.
“I really just wanted to play golf for fun because high school was pretty intense with all of the tournaments. Eventually, I decided to at least check out the recruiting process, and the former Bucknell coach Lisa [Francisco] had emailed me but I didn’t see it until like two months later. I had it in my mind that I wasn’t going to play in college, so why would I look at any emails from coaches? But then I found Bucknell and did some research and asked some of the professors at my school. They all said Bucknell is a really good school and you should do it. My parents also encouraged me. They said you’re always going to have Spain. Try something different while you have the opportunity, and you can always come back.”
Cristina had been to the U.S. on a family trip to see the sights in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Somehow Lewisburg did not make the itinerary, so when she accepted the offer to come to Bucknell, her only visuals of the campus had been via the website.
That was also the fall of 2020, right in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Cristina at first wasn’t even sure she would be allowed to travel from Spain to the U.S. She eventually got that worked out, and then it was off by herself to become a stranger in a strange land. Fortunately, her new golf team provided an immediate support system.
“I was so scared,” Cristina admits. “I got here and I was literally alone because my parents were not allowed to come with me to drop me off. I just showed up with two suitcases and my golf bag. My teammates really helped me at the beginning. It was really nice to have them because it’s 10 girls that you can always count on.”
Cristina recalls that older teammates Sahana Paravantavida and Morgan Hennessy were especially helpful with the transition. Then-senior Casey Morrow, a biology major, was a huge help academically, as Cristina had decided to forego the business track, instead majoring in neuroscience.
The 2020 fall golf season was canceled, and the team played in a few small-field events in the spring of 2021, but golf still provided a positive outlet as an outdoor, socially distanced activity.
Having that outlet was important, as neuroscience is a challenging major that requires many hours in the lab. Cristina did the International Baccalaureate program in high school, which offers a mix of disciplines. She selected business administration, psychology, and biology.
Despite the lure of Madrid, Cristina realized that a business track was not for her, but she very much enjoyed psychology and bio. Neuroscience, which leans on both disciplines, is not an undergraduate option in Spain. First you study medicine and then you narrow your scope to neuroscience. In her research on Bucknell, she discovered that neuroscience is offered as a major. What an advantage it could be to return to Spain with a degree that isn’t even offered there.
Cristina has done internships researching Parkinson’s Disease at Cima Universidad de Navarra in Spain in each of the last two summers. The neuroscientists that she assisted, Jose Lanciego and pre-doctoral candidate Julia Chocarro Garcia, were presenting their research at the Society of Neuroscience conference in Washington, D.C., last November. Cristina was invited to join them, and she says the experience was life-changing.
“I went to the conference and it was insane. The best neuroscientists in the world were there. It was just amazing. I felt so small and honestly overwhelmed because they were talking about things that I couldn’t even imagine. But I got to meet so many amazing people.”
That networking opportunity landed Cristina her first job. She met a neuroscientist from Yale who is involved in very similar research. Cristina is undecided about what kind of graduate program she might pursue, so she accepted an invitation to work in the lab and gain some experience while she figures it out.
In the meantime, Cristina still has a few more weeks left in her collegiate career. She and her teammates are gearing up for the Patriot League Championship, which will be held at the Bucknell Golf Club Apr. 19-21. Cristina had a strong fall season, highlighted by a top-10 finish at Youngstown State’s Roseann Schwartz Invitational with rounds of 77 and 74. Her career-low round was a 72 at the 2021 Bucknell Invitational.
“I feel like the dynamics on the team have changed a lot. It’s not like we didn’t practice, but now everyone on the team is at the facility even when we don’t have to. We have some really good young players who want to be even better. Our program is changing, and it’s a little sad to be leaving when we are at our highest peak in my four years. I think we are going to do better at Patriot Leagues than we have done in the past.”
The good thing about golf is that it’s a lifetime sport, and even if her collegiate career will soon be ending, Cristina says golf will always be part of her life. One of the other members of her club in Bilbao is two-time major champion and former world No. 1 John Rahm. She sees him and the club when he’s not on tour, and his parents have recently joined as well.
“Golf is so set into my life, and even when I go home over winter or summer break, I still play with my parents and my friends. It can be competitive, but you can always play in a friendly way and have fun.”
With a short time left in her Bucknell career, Cristina has certainly carved a path that she could only imagine on that lonely flight four years ago.
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