Volunteering with UW Medical Center
Winter 2024
Volunteering at UWMC has been an incredible opportunity for me to see much of what I have been learning about medical systems in action. More specifically, I feel that I have had a unique look into the operations of a medical center from entry to exit of the hospital. Interacting with the dispatchers, nurses, and physicians across the hospital has given me insight into the actual functions of a hospital that are required to ensure patient care. Furthermore, I’ve been able to work as a pet therapy guide, contributing to a new program that in my experience thus far has seen incredibly positive results from both the patients and the staff that have had interaction with our dogs!
Traveling to the Society for Neuroscience Conference
Fall 2023
This fall, I had the opportunity to not only participate and present our outreach work at the annual Society for Neuroscience in DC, but also the experience of planning and organizing a trip for 12 different people within our club. With this being the largest group we had ever brought, it was incredible to feel the independence in being able to design everything from the ground up. Small things like booking AirBnBs, coordinating travel times, and creating an agenda made me feel like I could actually be somewhat independent in traveling. Once we got to the actual conference I was amazed at the environment. I met people ranging from high schoolers to senior faculty, and it felt so unique to be able to be in that atmosphere of people brought together for a shared love of neuroscience. Our presentation itself was focused on educational community outreach to marginalized populations, which also gave us tons of interesting talking points amongst the sea of clinical/basic research that dominated most of the conference.
VA Summer Research Program
Summer 2023
With this being the second lab that I have ever worked in, it was fascinating to see the change in atmosphere. Whether it be the affiliation with a medical center, the fact that it was a federal agency, or more simply just the type of research being done, it was a unique experience that rounded my view of what my future career can look like. Throughout this summer, I spent a lot of time getting to know many other undergraduates, graduate students, and post-docs working in different areas related to TBI. I spent a lot of time working on lab experiments with mice, more specifically designing code for sensors called phidgets that would detect the position of a mouse to determine social interactions. While I unfortunately had to spend a good amount of time trying to get granted access to my databased for more clinical records based analysis on TBI outcomes, I was able to design much of my experiment that I hope to continue with in the fall. The last part of the program was watching career development and diversity focused lectures, examining topics from graduate school applications to future research applications, which I felt allowed me to more introspectively look at myself and think about what exactly it is that I want to be doing in the future.
Healthcare Alternative Spring Break
Spring 2023
Although I am still far from discovering my complete path within medicine, there is no doubt to me that healthcare accessibility is one of the most personally important topics in my studies. This is why HCASB initially appealed to me as it was an opportunity to shadow physicians in Clarkston and Lewiston, a 6 hour drive away in a rural town I had never been to. It became immediately evident what the primary issue was: there aren’t enough doctors to care for the population. The hospital we were at had only one neurosurgeon, who was over 70 years old but did not want to retire as it would mean people would die without the procedures he could perform. A similar circumstance occurred with a gastroenterologist that I shadowed, who expressed that he wanted to retire but didn’t want his community to suffer because of it. This recurring pattern is evident in rural regions, with both primary care and specialist physicians struggling to keep up with the needs of the public. While I am unsure if I am able to commit myself to a career in rural healthcare, I am certain that it remains a population that I want to continue working to improve the healthcare outcomes of, whether it be through medicine or public health.
Crisis Counseling
Summer 2022
Throughout my life, I have had many of my friends struggle with mental health issues. As such, I feel like I have tended to take on the role of someone who actively wants others to reach out to me in their moments of need. This experience and desire is what led me to apply to be a Crisis Counselor for Crisis Text Line, and I have had absolutely no regrets about this decision. Throughout this experience, I have encountered people from elementary school to elderly populations with situations ranging from homelessness, substance use, abuse, and even suicide. Although I have come across many difficult situations, I’ve found it tremendously impactful to me personally to be a resource to these people. Some texters just simply need someone to talk to in order to get through the night, others want to refer themselves to a professional but just can’t realistically access one. In addition to my personal growth, I think these broad ranges of issues have illustrated for me the broader societal issues that affect the mental wellbeing of people in America, which is something that I hope to continue exploring throughout college and my future career.
Designing my Own Experiment and Learning from Mistakes
Summer 2022
When I was told that I would be able to design my own personal experiment, I was ecstatic. My mind was running wild with possibilities, and it wasn’t long before I had a proposal that my PI was incredibly supportive of. However, I think this project was an example of a skill that I need to continue to develop: failure. Obviously not in the sense of failing more, but rather finding productive ways to address and accept it. My study in its general concept was simple: different cohorts of mice were given different temperature exposures, and then their food intake was recorded to determine how temperature affected food intake. Simple right? Not really – things quickly got out of hand. My card had access issues to the mice facilities, lack of schedule coordination led to the experiment being started at different times, mice escaped from their enclosures while food intake was recording, and sometimes the devices didn’t record enough food. Admittedly, much of the organizational difficulties I take responsibility for, but I think it was also an opportunity for me to learn how to adapt to challenges in the moment that I couldn’t have expected. I plan to restart this experiment in the fall using what we have learned from this error run!
Joining the Deem Lab
Winter 2022
After constant searching (and much rejection...), I was fortunate enough to be accepted as an undergraduate under Dr. Jennifer Deem for the Diabetes Institute in the South Lake Union campus. This lab focuses on unveiling the neural mechanisms underlying thermoregulation and food intake in order to inform diabetes treatments.
This was my first introduction to animal based research, and I must say it has been an incredible experience this quarter whether it be because of the incredible mentorship Dr. Deem has provided me, to meeting other undergraduates in the lab! But the most surprising aspect of this lab to me was the fact that I had expected to be doing dishes for at least a quarter before I got to do the "big stuff", but by the second day I was already learning how to section slices of mouse brains! (Shown to the right). Since then, I have been involved with analyzing code used by the lab, hosting "Data Science Wednesdays" for anyone in the lab to join, and running fiber photometry experiments, which are devices that record neural activity in AgRP neurons (the "hunger neurons" in mice and humans) as we present food to them!
Coding: From Despised to New Hobby
Fall 2020
Going into this year, I had no experience programming besides a short introductory class enough years back that I absolutely no useful recollection of it. As such, immediately having to complete our labs for CHEM 145 through graphing in Python was one of the greatest challenges of this year. It was immensely frustrating because much of what I wrote didn't make intuitive sense to me, instead I just accepted that "x" did "y". However, as I began to learn more about the language and the basics, when presented with a problem that had a direct application through Python I started to see how satisfying it was to solve. After the quarter had ended, I even decided to find some more introductory materials online, which led me to a game formatting module called "Pygame". Soon after I successfully recreated a simple version of the popular 1972 game "Pong"!
