Background
At age 12 I fell gravely ill and was life-flighted to a research hospital nearly 500 miles from home. Following this traumatic experience and a year of difficult recovery, I found myself enrolled in an NIH youth program to explore microbiology. There I met Dr. Jovanka Voyich who introduced me to medical research. What once terrified me now fascinated me. With her mentorship, I set my trajectory toward entering an M.D./Ph.D. program with a focus in antimicrobial resistance. I began advanced biology courses, started doing research projects, and volunteered in healthcare environments. My research projects included work on microbiomes at the NIH program, viral vector analysis at Carroll College, cell culture biology with Epstein Barr Virus in my first year at Colorado College, and my three-year undergraduate thesis on genome expression patterns in a model system for cancer research. Upon graduating from Colorado College with degrees in Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, and Classics, I was awarded the US Fulbright Scholarship to study antimicrobial resistance at the Florey Institute in the UK. This MSc continues to direct me toward my M.D./Ph.D. studies as I continue to research, discover, and explore microbiology and its direct impact on the clinical environment. |
The Team
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