14
THE
CATALYST
CBC ALUMNI MAGAZINE
NEVER GIVE UP
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY | FALL 2017
15 15
SUPPORTING REPRESENTATION IN SCIENCE
By Alice Ferng | BS BMB, 2009
By Eman Akam | PhD Chemistry, 2016
“N
ever give up”—throughout my life this is the catch phrase I would say to my friends in their lowest moments. These three words capture the spirit of perseverance and courage with which I choose to confront the many challenges I have faced throughout my life. Ever since I can remember thinking about a career, I wanted to be a surgeon. Although I had hobbies in many different disciplines and subjects, including programming, writing websites or silly programs into my friends’ TI-83+ calculators, playing musical instruments, or trolling my siblings (also CBC alumni), I became especially enamored with scientific research. One of my greatest mentors and inspirations was my high school biology teacher, Ms. Laurie Cale, who helped me discover my passion for scientific innovation and engineering through state and national science competitions and gene-silencing research at the UA. When I was applying for medical school, I discovered there was an option to combine my drive to further both scientific Alice with siblings Shiana and Jonathan
I
inquiry and medicine. My dream pivoted from practicing surgeon to academic physician as I pursued a dual-doctorate MD/PhD degree from the UA, where I continued conducting research in multiple interdisciplinary fields. My PhD was a period of self-rediscovery. With the support of my advisor and friend Dr. Zain Khalpey who encouraged me to innovate, I found myself growing human hearts in bioreactors—going as far as to design and build my own 3D bioprinter for stem cells and biologics. In my free time I worked for various innovative medical education platforms (Osmosis, Picmonic, Kenhub), built medical devices, and wrote mobile health applications. I competed in several hackathons during this time, and much to my surprise, won first place at some of them with projects such as creating a mental health app, autonomous virus-inactivating drone, and PTSD/ phobia treatment using virtual reality headsets. My participation in these types of events and projects revived and fueled a growing passion that brought me full circle with my past hobbyist programmer and engineer self who was captivated by mathematics and technology. After having pursued a singular career goal for much of my life, I found myself reflecting on the Buddhist principle of letting go of attachments and re-evaluating what it meant to “never give up.” Instead of using the phrase to pursue one specific career goal, I realized the phrase was more valuable when applied to believing in my own abilities and in-
stincts to find a rewarding career path. With the goal of becoming a medical technologist, my close friends, family, and amazing mentors helped convince me that I could make a drastic career change into engineering and making this leap was one of the toughest and most terrifying things I have done—to leave a prestigious and stable path in medicine for the emerging field of MedTech. Having had some time to acclimate, I am already happier and know that I made the right decision by listening to my heart. I am currently a systems engineer working on various industrial machines and devices (aerospace, military, medical), as well as a professor through the UA Department of Surgery. Other exciting roles include being the Chief Medical Officer of Autonomic Systems, a heart rate variability wearable device company, and an editor of MedGadget, an online blog that reports the latest and greatest upcoming medical technologies and research. In my spare time, I enjoy meditation, CrossFit, building things, and music. It’s been a wild ride, and I can’t wait to see where my perseverance and application of “never give up” will lead me next.
n May of this year, I had the honor of being invited to give the Keynote Address at the graduation celebration for McNair Scholars at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). This was a particularly significant event for me as I am an alumnus of the McNair program, and I owe a considerable part of my academic endeavors and successes to this program.
Dr. McNair became the second African American in space as he flew aboard Challenger for eleven days. Dr. McNair was on his second Challenger mission when the shuttle exploded during its launch. Following his untimely and tragic death, members of Congress provided funding to the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, with the mission to increase the number of individuals from underrepresented segments of society in academia.
I am currently a post-doctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School working with Dr. Peter Caravan and Dr. David Sosnovik on development of Magnetic Resnance Imaging (MRI) contrast agents that target fibrotic diseases. I am fortunate to be funded through the NIH’s Ruth L. Kirschstein Institutional Research Training fellowship, an award that centers on academic-career training. As such, following this appointment I wish to pursue a faculty position that would allow me to focus on teaching and research. I hope to follow the example of the great mentors that I’ve had and do my part in fulfilling the mission of the McNair Scholars Program.
My introduction to the McNair Program was a serendipitous and momentous event in my life, perhaps as significant as completion of my PhD. For the first two years as an undergraduate at UNH, I worked as a receptionist in a building which—to my great fortune—housed the McNair Program offices. Through this position, I became conversant with Dr. Antonio Henley, then director of the McNair Program. At the time, I had a very limited notion of what graduate school and research were or what they entailed. I certainly had never imagined that I could pursue an academic career. Through my acquaintance with Dr. Henley, I was educated about the McNair Program and graduate school. Although I was still uncertain about pursuing a graduate degree, Dr. Henley encouraged me to apply to the program. As a sophomore at UNH, I applied to the McNair Program, became a McNair scholar, and began my very first research project in chemistry. I was profoundly affected by this experience.
The McNair Program was established in honor and memory of Dr. Ronald E. McNair, an astronaut on the space shuttle Challenger and a renowned laser physicist. Dr. McNair was noted for being a Presidential Scholar, a Ford Foundation Fellow, and a NATO Fellow. His many distinctions and accomplishments led to his selection by NASA for the space shuttle program. In 1984,
My involvement in undergraduate research solidified my desire to pursue a
PhD and has certainly shaped my career. I shared some highlights of my academic journey during my speech at UNH. I conveyed the joy, fulfillment, and freedoms that are part of conducting academic research. I also shared some hardships that I’ve faced in graduate school and ways that have helped me overcome them, particularly in relation to being a person with a background that is historically underrepresented in the field. I mentioned the importance of having support systems, which for me included the Program to Advance Women Scientists in Chemistry and Biochemistry (PAWS) at the University of Arizona, and the National Organization for Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE). These peer groups and the many official and unofficial mentors that I’ve had as a student were essential for my well being and academic achievements. In addition to my academic pursuits, I have resumed some long-neglected hobbies since graduating from the UA. Besides making simple jewelry and sculpting, I have begun painting fervently, and it has now become my favorite meditative hobby. I am also relishing the many hiking and camping oppurtunities that New England offers, and I make it a point to spend as much time as possible soaking up some sunshine.