For Aidan Watkins, who graduates this year from St. Anselm’s Abbey School in Washington, D.C., an unfortunate turn of events during his freshman year of high school resulted in strengthening his faith, inspiring his participation in a scientific study and even confirming his decision of where to continue his education.
“I injured my spine freshman year playing basketball – the sport I love more than anything else – (and) I was forced to stop playing (basketball) and it got in the way of living a normal life,” Watkins recalled. “For a long time it felt like there was no end in sight, and I started to feel hopeless – that’s when I finally turned to God and started a small practice of reading my Bible daily, which ended up having a profound impact on me.”
An altar server since the age of 8, Watkins and his parents, Julie and Ed Watkins, attend St. Ann Parish in Tenleytown, where Aidan’s uncle and godfather, Msgr. James Watkins, is the pastor.
“Although I was involved in my faith from a young age, I had always taken it for granted – faith had always been a part of my life, but it had just been expected of me rather than self-driven,” he said.
His daily Bible reading, Watkins said, helped him discover that “trust in God’s plan was the only thing that helped me get through” recovering from his injury, and it also inspired him to “share my journey with other people to help them have the same experience of discovering God’s love for them.”
As such, he became president of his campus ministry program and it led him to take on the role of Kairos retreat rector because he wanted to help his classmates to “feel the visceral experience of being surrounded by God’s love and the love of all the people around you who you see as God’s children.”
His spinal injury and his recovery process also led him to become interested in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and participating in Johns Hopkins University published research related to that field.
“It’s actually pretty funny how everything worked out, because I ended up reaching out to the man who conducted my surgery at Johns Hopkins University to discuss an independent study I was doing at St. Anselm’s on the topic of my specific back injury,” Watkins said. “I ended up becoming part of his research team working under him and alongside his
residents.”
He called the collaboration with the medical team “a fantastic experience” and ended up contributing to two separate research
papers/projects.
Watkins said he was “extremely honored” to be listed as the second author on “Synthetic CT: an emerging MRI-based alternative to CT imaging in orthopedics” which was just recently published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. A second paper he participated in is currently under review for publication.
Despite his interest in spiritual and medical topics, Watkins envisions a career in the Navy. He has been accepted to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, following in the footsteps of his brother, Joseph, a 2025 graduate of St. Anselm’s who is currently finishing his Plebe year at the academy.
“I feel that the leadership development opportunities at Annapolis far surpass any other path I could have chosen,” he said. “My family has a long history of naval service … In the future, I am interested in the possibility of serving in submarines as my father did, but I won’t know until I get more exposure to the various commissioning lines.”
The Naval Academy, he said, appeals to him, he said, because “I love the challenge and difficulty of it as well as the camaraderie and brotherhood. I know it will be a challenge, but also the fact that I am going to grow from it.”
That challenge, Watkins added, will not deter him, because “as I found through my back injury, I have learned to embrace challenges with
gratitude, because I know adversity always presents opportunities for growth.”
In this final year at St. Anselm’s, Watkins was named captain of the school’s varsity basketball team. “This was a personal victory for me to return to the court in a leadership role after all I had gone through with my back injury,” he said.
During his tenure at St. Anselm’s Watkins tutored students at nearby St. Anthony Catholic School in Northeast Washington, D.C.
“A major lesson that I learned (from tutoring) more than anything else was that it takes so little to make a positive impact in someone’s life,” he said.
He also participated in an Appalachian Service Project where high school students from around the county volunteer to make the homes of impoverished families more habitable. He and his team were charged with replacing the flooring of a bedroom for two little girls.
“When I first saw their living conditions, my heart broke for them. Although I never met the family, I was deeply moved and wanted to do what I could to help bring joy to the lives of these two little girls,” he said.
Participating in the faith-centered and service oriented activities at his school, working on science projects to improve the lives of others and preparing for a career in the Navy all fit into his vision of his future.
“More than anything, I want to help and serve other people,” Watkins said. “Ultimately, I will go wherever I am needed most and feel most called to serve.”
