Epiphany Personal Statement

I was 13 years old when I had my first scientific epiphany. My high school biology class was studying the brain and that day we’d been taught that no new neurons formed during adulthood. I remember reading a copy of MIT's Technology Review magazine that night in my parent's living room. There was a short article about new research on neurogenesis: new neurons formed in some areas of the adult brain. At the time, I was not so much floored by the fact that new neurons formed in adulthood, but that even in the 21st century, there was still new discoveries to be made and that my textbooks still didn’t have it all quite right. That day, I decided I wanted to make one of those discoveries.
Growing up, my family constantly had magazines like Popular …show more content…
It was in my first quarter at the University of Washington that I met Dr. Pierre Mourad and began working in his ultrasound and neurosurgery lab. That earlier epiphany had piqued my interest in neuroscience, so Dr. Mourad’s lab was a perfect fit. I didn't know much about ultrasound or imaging at the time but I was eager to learn. The first project I helped with was development of a new pain diagnostic technique using focused ultrasound. I was excited by work that uses technology to solve health problems and began to realize that I wanted a career doing …show more content…
I am already collaborating on a project with Dr. Suzie Pun’s group, who has developed a technique for delivering genetic material into targeted brain tissue. The technique relies on ultrasound combined with microbubbles to cavitate and open the choroid plexis, allowing the genetic components to reach the neural stem cells that line the ventricles within the brain. My work focuses on helping to optimize the ultrasound delivery and device, and characterizing the microbubbles. Also of interest to me is the photoacoustics work of Dr. Matthew O’Donnell, given its use of ultrasound and its translational research