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The Interview:

Karen. What gets you most excited about going to lab each day?
Ann. I guess the knowledge that you know that you’re going to learn something new. That’s also what gets me to go to class!  

How important have mentors been for you? 
I think they have all played a very unique role in my development – each one of them. I was in the Krug lab and I learned western blotting and that led me to being able to do what I need to do in the Sheltzer lab- which was performing protein analysis. In the Sheltzer lab, Dr. Sheltzer taught me a lot of data analysis with Prism, R, …and he always asked me questions & induced my curiosity in different areas. Because of that, I became interested in computational biology and I joined the Balázsi  lab where I’m now working on my senior thesis on multicellularity, a project that brings technology and science together….. Dr. Balázsi was actually someone I had met freshman year as an advisor through the iGEM program. And in iGEM, we also worked with Dr. Gergen, who helped us with anything we needed for the team, and has also written recommendation letters for me and supported me throughout ….  These are sequential pieces of the puzzle – and they make me who I am, all of them.

What are your long-term plans?
I’m currently applying for Fulbright to go to Norway. If I get the fellowship, I ‘m going to be involved in this huge multidisciplinary international collaborative effort to advance organ on chip technology-- basically  a chip the size of a USB that is lined with different cells in particular patterns –to mimic that organ’s physiological state.. After that, I will apply to PhD programs, probably in in genetics.

How do you think research has influenced your education?
I think it made me a more aware person. I am a biochem major. We read textbooks all the time about all the different discoveries but we don’t learn about the time people put into trying to make these discoveries or the time trying to find answers to these questions. Because I’m involved in research, I understand the time researchers have to put it. And the people who are involved …I have a deeper appreciation of knowledge in general.

Do you enjoy the challenge of learning something new?
Definitely. I think in my first experience with research, everything was just not working. And then all of a sudden there was a day where I could see: “It’s working! I’m really good at this.” I guess it’s just getting past that point where everything becomes second nature to you. From that point on, it’s easier to work on questions that you actually want to answer.

Research has continually brought me to different fields, pushed me in new directions. I remember one time when Dr. Sheltzer, who is very interested in data mining, encouraged me to go to a Hackhealth at MIT. I was the youngest participant there which was super scary. But I went on stage and I pitched my idea. And I was able to meet researchers, doctors, surgeons, businesspeople from all over the world. And that motivated me to do more.

So you do enjoy presenting your work?
I love sharing whatever we’re doing with other researchers. Publishing papers is one of the ways to get ideas out there. And going to conferences.One of the best experiences I had was going to Washington for the AACR meeting (April 2017). There were 4 rooms filled with posters –all different types of cancer research, and opportunities to meet with other researchers, doctors, even cancer patient survivors. It was an amazing experience… I also presented this research at the Mt Sinai symposium just recently –and got invited to give a talk. It was great to see how other people perceive my research, and to learn from the follow-up questions and conversations that took place.  

Have you always been so confident?
During freshman year, just the idea of presenting the iGEM project was super frightening to me. As I present more and more at different conferences, though, I’ve become more comfortable with the environment and I’m able to say what I want to say. I used to be wary of questions, the unexpected component of conferences...but I’ve since become more accepting with not knowing how to answer a question. Now I know it’s okay to say “I don’t know.”

The same thing applies to hackathons. The first time I was at a hackathon, it was super scary because everybody there knew how to code. I had no experience of what it was going to be like, or if people would want to work on project with me. It was all a new experience – pulling people in, trying to convince them that the project was important….  And now Hackathons are my main thing. I love going to them. 

And you’ve learned how to code since then?  
Yes. A big part of what drove me to learn was wanting to be an effective team leader. You have to be able to communicate with your team members. That was one of the main reasons why I learned how to code.

When you initially came to SB – you were primarily focused on the study of biology. What made you decide to add Economics as a second major?
At the time when I realized that I had almost finished with my biochem major requirements, I knew I could either graduate early, or take up a second major. And I wanted to take up a second major related to math. Math is one of the skills that is important in life, regardless of what field you go into. So I decided on Economics. And I don’t regret that decision because I was able to learn more computer languages, more about data processing. And that all went along with me learning more languages for my research. Another thing is modelling – being able to predict the future, to predict and allocate resources. Economics is a study of scarcity and how we model our use of resources. I thought that was super interesting. And it definitely increased my math skills.

Being part of Honors College has also had an impact on broadening my education. We take a lot of non science courses. I’ve even taken a course on Rock and Roll. I like to learn about things that are outside of science.

Were you pre-med initially?
I came to SB because they have such a great premed program. My parents wanted me to go to med school. Doing research, I realized I should pursue what I’m interested in and what my passion is -- which is science.