Thomas Kozel Interview

Since I am in the Molecular Microbiology and Immunology major, I decided to interview a professor with a medical background that could give me advices on how to accomplish my goal. Lucky, I had the honor of interviewing Dr. Thomas Kozel, a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine. During the interview, Dr. Kozel told engaging stories that I found to be inspiring and worthwhile to look up to. Getting the chance to hear the experiences that help him became who he is today, his role at the university, and the advices that he provided are ideas that I can look up to whenever I feel stress or down to continue learning. To get to know Dr. Kozel personally, I asked him to tell me about his experiences that he will never forget …show more content…
Kozel talked about how he also runs a research project to give students research opportunities at the University of Nevada, Reno. His research “focused on the development of rapid, inexpensive, point-of-care diagnostics for infectious diseases…the diagnostics under development in his laboratory aim to detect microbial antigens that are shed into body fluids during infection.” Since the 1970s, he has been involving students from different backgrounds (mainly medical, graduates, and seniors for their thesis; sometimes undergraduate students) to help him with his research. He wants students that have high commitments to research and the lab tasks that are assigned to them to allow the project go effectively. There were many times when conflicts kicked in but Dr. Kozel would work hard to solve the situations. An example of a conflict that he had faced was trying to maintained a competitive research program during the time when federal funding was not at its best. To resolve the problem, he wrote a proposal to the federal office to explain the reasons why the money is important and how it would be beneficial for the community. With his motivation, he was approved for federal funding to continue his