I fell in love reading paleontology books as a kid, finding the connection between biology and history. My love for biology and engineering made me decide on doing biomedical engineering, and I was eager to learn more about the applications and fields that some BMEs can do. I remember one Friday during Intro to BME, the genomics and proteomics professor talked about his lab that was focused on finding therapeutic targets to help treat Lupus. He needed undergraduate researchers, so I talked with him after class telling him how my mother has been suffering from Lupus for the last 10 years and that I was eager to know if I can help. After a quick talk about what I knew about the disease he placed me under the post doctorate that was working on antibodies that would be tested on mice with tumors. I worked in his lab for almost 2 years, presented my findings to the Undergraduate Research Fellowship at our school and started focusing on how to make research a career. In the remaining year and a half I had with school, I worked part time in their pathology department and as soon as I graduated, I applied to a research position in the radiation oncology department, and after a month long series of 5 interviews with doctors, physicians, and other clinical staff I was hired on to my current job. I get to work with more people than I expected, and learn coding and medical techniques. My job is more bioinformatics than biomedical engineering, however that’s alright with me. After nearly a year of working with an amazing team, I love talking with the clinical staff, working on their problems like a puzzle, and getting to improve a flawed electronic medical record keeping system.
#SASEScienceWeek2020 #SASEFutureScientist
