studentspotlight

ACCESS: A Tale of Two Researchers

February 15, 2024

ACCESS: A Tale of Two REsearchers

 

The first thing Isabella Scalise noticed when she joined the 2022 ACCESS Scholars program was a feeling of empowerment. How could she not?

Surrounded by a cohort of ambitious scientists-in-training, and under the supervision of women ecstatic to help her find success in her passions, Isabella was taking a huge step in realizing her middle school dream of conducting cancer research.

Wide-eyed middle schooler

It all started with her grandpa’s colon cancer diagnosis. Isabella, a wide-eyed middle schooler at the time, was driven to learn as much as she could. She started taking a cancer and genetics class at Providence Cancer Institute during the summer and found a particular interest in precision medicine, which accounts for an individual’s genetics, environment and lifestyle when crafting a game plan to fight diseases — like cancer. This interest only grew after starting at the U when another family member started experiencing resistance to therapies targeted to treat her cancer.

When it came time to join a lab, an integral part of the ACCESS experience, the Kinsey lab at the Huntsman Cancer Institute made perfect sense.

“The scientific questions being pursued in the Kinsey lab deeply resonate with me,” says Isabella, now a sophomore studying honors biology with minors in mathematics and chemistry. “We work to overcome primary resistance mechanisms to targeted treatments.”

And who was waiting there with open arms, ready to mentor Isabella? A 2017 ACCESS alum.

A Life-Changing Lab

Sophia Schuman describes her ACCESS experience as “eye-opening.” She discovered the program while searching for scholarships and found herself spending the summer of 2017 with a cohort of 24 women, already passionate about Sophia’s interests.

Isabella (left) with Sophia, in the lab together. ^^ Banner photo above: Sophia (left) with Isabella.

"You got to go to college early, live on campus, get exposed to all the sciences. I applied immediately, and I was so excited to hear back,” Sophia explains. “It was the driving force, the reason that I came to the U. I didn't have issues finding my classes on the first day of school because I had already been here, and it felt like this was home a little bit.”

Sophia wasn’t placed in the Kinsey lab, but she says Conan Kinsey, MD, PhD, principal investigator of the lab, found her and “changed my life forever.”

Like Isabella, Sophia had a personal connection to cancer as she had watched someone close to her fight pancreatic cancer. Sophia was amazed by how well the patient’s body held up during the experience, which piqued her own interest in cancer research and drew her to the lab.

“The Kinsey lab brought me into so many different opportunities,” she continues, “but it also taught me so much about how to think, how to be a professional in the industry.”

Part of that professional experience included mentoring, which is where Isabella comes into the equation.

A holistic understanding

The pair combined their shared passion to perform research on autophagy, a primary resistance mechanism to targeted therapies for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). During this time, Isabella learned the details and mechanisms behind the procedures they performed, learned how to derive the right scientific questions from their work and even came to understand how the work they were doing fit into the big picture. Along the way, Sophia would send Isabella educational materials that helped her develop a holistic understanding of the science.

“I always felt comfortable asking Sophia questions. She’d always take the time to answer them very thoroughly and when I made mistakes, making sure I learned from them. I've never felt ashamed for making a mistake.”

Isabella said that working under Sophia’s guidance created a comfort in the lab, and Sophia seemed to enjoy it just as much.

“Isabella came in very interested, very teachable and obviously passionate about the work behind it. As well, it was fun having another woman in the lab. I saw a lot in her that I saw in myself. She's willing to stay until the work is done. She asked a lot of really good, intuitive questions, even from the get-go with having very basic concepts and understanding of science.”

The duo no longer works together, but they’ll always be connected by the Kinsey lab, a shared love for research, and ACCESS Scholars.

By Seth Harper

ACCESS: Margaret Call

January 17, 2024

Margaret Call: Pathfinder

 

Finding your path in life is rarely as simple as a 90-minute coming-of-age movie might suggest. It’s often slow, requires a good deal of trial and error, and can persist deep into the stages of a person’s life.

 

 

Margaret Call found herself facing this age-old dilemma while sitting in an advisor’s office in junior high. They went through the motions, discussing Margaret’s interests and ambitions, until landing on STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics.) Her advisor suggested ACCESS Scholars, a first-year community, research and scholarship program committed to advancing gender equity in STEM at the University of Utah. The suggestion stuck around in Margaret’s mind until senior year of high school when she decided to apply with her eye on picking chemistry as her major on a pre-med track.

As a research-oriented person, Margaret found the opportunities ACCESS offered appealing, even if she wasn’t going to end up under the research umbrella. Keeping her options opened ended up paying off.

The ACCESS Experience

ACCESS kicks off the summer before classes start with a two-week live-in component. Students learn what the College of Science and the U have to offer while getting to know their cohort. For Margaret, this was the highlight of the whole experience.

“The chance to explore the university campus for a couple of weeks helped me to feel comfortable as a student in knowing where I was and what I was doing,” said Margaret. “It was through the summer portion that I made my best friends in college. There is honestly no substitute for making friends in a space where you have common interests and experiences. I know that they have my back when things are difficult, and they understand even the parts related to being a woman in a male-dominated field.”

Beyond finding a community, Margaret found her path through education. A capstone project and environmental science curriculum helped her discover a passion for climate science and policy.

“The summer coursework changed my entire college pathway. I would never have arrived in the geosciences without it. The space to explore different fields that I hadn’t wasn’t aware of in a low-risk environment allowed me to consider pathways I didn’t even know were available.”

18 Months Later

Margaret, now a sophomore in geoscience and geophysics, and over a year removed from the summer component of ACCESS, has dived deep into the world of research. She joined Pete Lippert’s lab in the Utah Paleomagnetic Center, working on an air quality project. The project, an “intersection between atmospheric science, climate science, and geoscience,” as Margaret puts it, works to “understand if biomagnetic monitoring techniques could be used to accurately measure particulate matter in the air.”

It's a sensitive process that can detect major inversion events as well as the difference in air quality in locations 20 feet from each other.

In addition to this research, Margaret stays busy with her work as a Science Ambassador, giving tours to prospective students looking to find their own path, and helping produce the Talking Climate Podcast hosted by the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy.

A Bright Future

“My ultimate ambition, at the moment, is to become some form of researcher,” said Margaret. “Whether that’s through a more academic pathway or through a different laboratory setting, I would really like to eventually be studying climate through a geological lens.”

Her current interest is in the details that landscapes and rocks hold about Earth’s past climate. It’s a path that she credits ACCESS in helping her find.

“ACCESS was one of the single most important things to my success in college. I have made so many incredible connections through the program, to students, professors, mentors, and more that will shape the resources that I am able to access. It helped me to remember to keep an open mind when considering pathways, and now, three majors later, I think I’ve finally found it.”

Perhaps finding your path life is a constant, never-ending journey we’re all on. Thanks to ACCESS Scholars, Margaret got the jumpstart her future needed.

 

by Seth Harper

Interested in applying to the ACCESS Scholars program at the University of Utah? Click here. 

Humans of the U: Sadie Dunn

January 2, 2024

“I am currently majoring in atmospheric sciences. I just love weather. I’ve loved it since I was probably in kindergarten. So growing up, I always knew that was what I was going to study in college. When I was looking at colleges, I was kind of shocked that the University of Utah is the only school in Utah that offers an atmospheric sciences degree. So that’s how I ended up here.

The For Utah Scholarship has been an amazing opportunity for me because honestly, I would not have been able to afford college on my own. This scholarship offered me the amazing opportunity to come and study here in the department I want to be in.

I am from Chicago and I grew up with really severe summer storms in the Midwest, so I guess that’s what really fostered my love for weather. Then I moved to Utah when I was 13 and just kept loving weather. There’s a ton of snow out here and crazy windstorms which sparked my curiosity.

All throughout junior high and high school, I knew studying weather was my goal. So when I was a senior in high school, we had an internship class and I got to intern at ABC 4 news in their weather department, which was cool. That was definitely the moment when I was like, ‘This is real. I’m working towards this and this is the goal.’ So it’s really exciting to take this love I’ve had since I was little and turn it into a career.

While interning at a broadcast station was fun, it’s not something that interests me as a career. But my atmospheric sciences degree can take me a bunch of different places. It offers research opportunities with organizations like the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). You can also work with private organizations. There are serious meteorologists in every field, which I think is one of the coolest parts about this job.

I’m still kind of feeling out what I want to do. It’s a STEM major and it’s very math- and physics- and chemistry-heavy. I consider myself to be smart, but I am not a natural in those courses. So I don’t think research is something I will do. I am really passionate about climate change, so I’m looking more into the field of sustainability.

Since I grew up with a love of severe weather, I would also love to be able to get a career that helps with the effects of those disasters, because it’s hard with hurricanes and tornadoes. You can’t stop them. They are going to hit and destroy everything. So I would love to find ways to lessen the effects of those or find better ways to prepare the communities.”

—Sadie Dunn, recipient of the For Utah Scholarship

This story originally appeared in @TheU.

Humans of the U: Sam Hendry

May 19, 2023

My freshman year, I took a bioethics class and learned some history about the U.S. that I didn’t know about.

It really blew my mind, that got me interested in joining United Together Against Hate (UTAH), a social justice advocacy group in U athletics. It’s been fascinating to learn about different racial disparities and all sorts of social justice issues that are going on in the U.S. And I’ve gained a lens in looking back home in Canada, because we’ve had some similar ongoing issues that have become more publicized in recent years, like the trauma of boarding schools on First Nation communities. Then after the George Floyd tragedy in the spring of 2020, I knew I wanted to be more than a bystander.Growing up as a military kid, my family moved a lot and friendships seldom lasted.

Read the full story of this talented competitve skier from Canada in @theU

 

Humans of the U: Katya Podkovyroff Lewis

May 19, 2023

Growing up as a military kid, my family moved a lot and friendships seldom lasted.

My French mother—a teacher and musician—encouraged reading and creativity while my American father —a soldier working in field artillery—encouraged tinkering and what he called “real world skills.” My curiosity was often left free to roam, and led me to have plenty of imaginary friends and daydreams that would occupy my time. As I grew older, this imagination mainly translated to creative writing.

Moving to the United States felt like a culture shock even as an American citizen, and high school was an even harder adjustment. When my senior year rolled around, I felt like a first-generation student in many ways with a father who had never been to college and a mother who wasn’t familiar with the American college system. Thanks to military educational benefits, I was able to attend American University in Washington, DC – my dream school and “reach school” due to my family’s financial situation. I took on double major in journalism and international studies, with a concentration in environmental sustainability and global health, intending to focus my career on science writing or science communication.

After graduation, I began a communications internship in January 2020 writing stories about climate change and ended up writing articles on COVID-19, specifically regarding resources for journalists and the toll of reporting on the pandemic. The pandemic changed a lot of people’s plans, including mine—when I was laid off from my restaurant job in March of 2020 and had the impending end of my internship that June, I scrambled for journalistic freelancing opportunities. But I wasn’t content with just writing about topics I was so interested in—I realized that I wanted to do the work. I decided to go back to college for a second bachelors in biology with a minor in Earth science at the University of Utah, where my passions have since flourished.

Read the rest of of Katya’s story in@theU.

3 Numbers that Changed My Life

May 15, 2023

I majored in math for a reason, I’m a lot better with numbers than I am words, so today, I want to tell you about 3 numbers that changed my life.

#1. 31,878. That’s the difference between 122 and 32,000. As a math major, numbers have always held a special significance, but as humans, I think we struggle to comprehend their magnitude.

For some context, here are your college milestones. 89 is the number of majors you could have chosen, 120 is the credits you finished to earn a bachelors degree, 1,534 is the number of acres you walked around campus, and 31,878 is the difference between the size of my high school and the University of Utah.

Coming from such a small school, my transition to a large university was nothing short of overwhelming. I didn’t have AP, IB or advanced programs, so I felt behind in my classes. I was expected to have a thorough understanding of concepts I’d never even heard about. I didn’t have a large network of alumni and students to reach out for support. Ultimately, I felt like I didn’t have the tools to be successful.

When we transition to college, we leave behind our established friends, family and community. We leave behind our support system and are forced to build one from scratch. This requires effort, intention, and vulnerability. It means reaching out to new people, trying new experiences, and asking for help, even when it feels uncomfortable. As I look out into the crowd, I don’t see a sea of faces, I see my network.

31,878. It’s a huge number, and I felt every bit of it in my transition. But in my life, there’s one number that puts this to shame.

#2. 8,431. Though it’s less than one third of the size, the difference in that 8,431 is much greater than 31,878. 8,431 is the number of miles from India to America. The distance that my dad traveled alone, in an airplane for the first time without even enough money to afford a ticket home. 8,431 is the distance between my parents and their mom and dad. The distance between their favorite foods, their best friends, their childhood! 31,878 represents my transition to college, but 8,431 represents my parents transition to a new life. I stand here tonight not as an individual, but as a representative of a larger community. Their stories remind me, remind us, that success is not easy and it does not come quickly.

As an ambassador, I’ve led countless tours and answered many questions about classes, extracurriculars and campus life. I knew I would be shaping the experiences of other students, but what was most significant was the way it shaped my own college experience. By sharing my story with others, I was forced to reflect on my own journey and the choices that I made. This led me to appreciate the opportunities I’d been given and be more intentional about the decisions that I made.

Today is a day to celebrate not only the decisions we’ve made, but the decisions made by those around us and those who came before us. Their decisions gave us the privilege to make our own. Through their struggles and triumphs, we are able to stand here today on their shoulders and honor their legacy. So thank you. Thank you for sacrificing familiarity, and comfort. Thank you for sacrificing your loved ones’ milestones: birthdays, weddings, and funerals. Thank you for sacrificing the opportunity to watch your parents grow old and instead working to build me a new life.

I would also like to take a moment to thank those who have passed away. Though they are not physically here, their impact on our lives continues to be felt. Thank you for your unwavering support, encouragement and love. Your absence today reminds us of the preciousness of life and your memory and love continues to inspire us. Thank you.

Onto the third and final number: 6. When people ask me about my major, they make a face at my response. Even without words, their furrowed brow and squinted eyes says it all: “why math”. When I was younger, I loved math because I thought it was rigid. I naively believed that if you followed all the rules, you could solve any problem. In a gray world, I found comfort in what I thought was a black and white subject.

However in college, I quickly realized that was far from the truth. The subject I believed was black and white wasn’t just gray, it was a rainbow of colors. What scared me most were the unsolved math problems, 6 to exact. Some of these problems have been around for centuries, and even with the brightest mathematicians who’ve dedicated their careers to studying them, they remain unsolved. I used to worry that I too would remain unsolved. That despite everyone’s greatest efforts, I was just too difficult to figure out. That I would remain a hypothesis, an experiment, and never evolve into anything concrete.

Now, I take pride in that. The existence and pursuit of these unsolved problems is what keeps the field exciting. While they themselves may remain unsolved, the process of solving them leads to new discoveries, collaborations and insights. So tonight, I encourage us to embrace the unsolved parts of our lives. Some questions exist not to be answered, but to remind us what we are looking for.

Thank you.

by Sahana Kargi

This speech was delivered by Kargi who represented the Class of ’23 on May 4, 2023 at the College of Science convocation in the Huntsman Center at the University of Utah.

2023 Goldwater Scholars

April 7, 2023

Goldwater Scholars 2023

Four College of Science students awarded a prestigious Goldwater Scholarship for 2023-24

As the result of an ongoing partnership with the Department of Defense's National Defense Education Programs (NDEP), Dr. John Yopp, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation, announced that the Trustees of the Goldwater Board has again been able to increase the number of Goldwater scholarships it is awarding for the 2023-2024 academic year to 413 college students from across the U.S.

“The Department of Defense’s continued partnership with the Goldwater Foundation ensures we are supporting the development of scientific talent essential to maintaining our Nation’s competitive advantage,” said Dr. Jagadeesh Pamulapati, Acting Deputy Director of Research, Technology and Laboratories, who oversees the NDEP program, as he explained the partnership.

With the 2023 awards, this brings the number of scholarships awarded since 1989 by the Goldwater Foundation to 10,283.

Eliza Diggins
Physics & Astronomy
Applied Mathematics

A sophomore, Eliza Diggins participated as a freshman in the Science Research Initiative (SRI) program, sponsored by the College of Science. The SRI puts students in a lab to do research as soon as they arrive on campus. After Eliza was admitted to the program, she began working with Fred Adler, professor of mathematics and of biology in the Department of Mathematics and in the School of Biological Sciences. "Math and physics have both had a special place in my heart for most of my life. Even back in elementary school, math and science always held my attention more than other subjects. I began to actively study physics in middle school and never looked back."

Following graduation she hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in theoretical astrophysics to use innovative computational and analytical techniques to better understand the dynamical processes at play on all scales of the cosmos.You can read an interview of Eliza here.

 

Audrey Glende
Physics & Astronomy
Mathematics
Philosophy of Science

An honors student with a triple major, Audrey Glende is currently researching a crystal and mapping its electrical and magnetic properties at extreme conditions, such as pressures similar to that of the earth's core temperatures just above absolute zero. The crystal (EuCd2P2) has been labeled as a superconductive candidate among other characteristics. As with electronic parts or materials used in fuel/battery cells, "many of the materials with complex properties," she says, referring to her work with the crystal, "are discovered through both theory and experimentation within condensed matter physics." It is this area of inquiry in which her ambition lies, and she is hoping to complete a Ph.D. in physics  and eventually share her knowledge through teaching at the college level.

Among many influential family members in her life,  she says, "I probably see myself most in my dad and know that it is very much so because of him that I have been comfortably hand-held into my passion for STEM in a way many people aren’t." Her father encouraged her to participate in science fairs as a youth and she was eventually recognized by Business Insider as having conducted one of the 30 most impressive science fair projects in the U.S. in 2015. Glende's faculty mentor is Professor Shanti Deemyad.

 

Daniel Koizumi
Mathematics

After graduation, "I hope to pursue a Ph.D. in Mathematics [and] conduct research in pure mathematics and teach at university," says Daniel Koizumi. His faculty mentors include Professor Karim Adiprasito, a German mathematician working at the University of Copenhagen and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who works in combinatorics; Professor Sean Howe, who works in arithmetic and algebraic geometry, representation theory, and number theory; and Professor Jon Chaika, whose research in the field of dynamical systems seeks to understand a space and a map by following individual points.

Recipient of the departmental Undergraduate Award for Excellence in Graduate Courses, Koizumi's  ambition is to continue doing research at the intersection of combinatorial topology and commutative algebra. He spent three months in 2022 as a research fellow at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "On a lazy Saturday," he says, "I ... enjoy hiking, cooking, or running."

 

Nichols Crawford Taylor
Applied Mathematics Computer Engineering
Computer Science

"I love robotics, autonomous systems, and all the math and engineering surrounding them," says Nichols Crawford Taylor. "I'm excited for the future they'll create!" Taylor, a triple major, plans on pursuing a Ph.D. in robotics and then transferring to industry to teach and present his research.

"Right now," he says, "I’m working on skill sequencing for autonomous manipulation using partial views of objects. We don’t expect robots to have all encompassing knowledge, so we’re using human-like views of objects with color and depth. From there, my research is about how to put together different skills the robot has to achieve a goal, like re-arranging books on a shelf."

A presidential intern during the 2021-2022 academic year and, currently, the Residence Hall Association President at the U, Taylor has been on the Dean's List and is a member of Pi Mu Epsilon. He is also a member of the Jiu Jitsu club. His faculty mentors include Dr. Daniel Drew, Dr. Alan Kuntz and Dr. Tucker Hermans, the latter of whom he considers his hero. "His breadth of knowledge and experience is astounding," says the Orem native. "He knows so much about and surrounding the field, and has incredible insights on problems take a good bit of time to wrap my head around."

 

Luke Reuschel

February 24, 2023

Luke Reuschel

Luke Reuschel

Learning at Mach 1.8.

Waiting for the signal to take off was adrenaline-inducing; the anticipation of the flight ahead was exciting all by itself. But nothing compares to when the pilot puts the jet into full throttle and you’re slammed to the back of your seat as the pilot shoots the jet out of the gate. It’s something I’ll never forget.

This flight was the culmination of my experiential learning component for my major in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences (ATMOS), where I decided to do a career-focused internship at Naval Air Station Lemoore, in California. It took a week of intensive training to prepare my fellow midshipmen and I to ride “rear-seat” in an F/A-18F Super Hornet.

Getting Ready to Fly
Before we could get a chance to fly, however, we had to do safety training, specifically designed for the type of jet we were going to be in. The first thing we learned was the configuration of the backseat, such as the ejection seat which has seven individual straps to keep you firmly secured to the seat in case you eject from the jet. Simply riding in the Super Hornet has hazards, such as G-LOC, which stands for “G-Force Induced Loss of Consciousness.” As the name suggests, this causes passengers to lose consciousness due to the force of gravity outweighing your body’s ability to pump blood to the brain. We learned the Anti-G Straining Maneuver (AGSM) to combat this.

Ejection Seat Training

We then had to learn post-ejection safety and maneuvering techniques, such as how to untangle our parachutes and how to inflate our life vest in the event of an ejection over water. Lastly, we had to be medically cleared for flight activity. Now, we were ready to fly.

Flying With The Squadron
I was assigned to the Strike Fighter Squadron 122, the primary training squadron on base. The two-seat squadrons are designed to instruct Naval Flight Officers whose primary job is to ride full-time in the backseat of a two-seat plane, like Goose in the movie Top Gun. Because instructors would sometimes fly solo, the other Midshipmen and I had the opportunity to hop in the back. I was lucky and managed to get multiple flights in the F-18 jet, my first occurring only three days after I completed my initial training.

After takeoff, the jets do a “G-warmup,” where you pull seven G’s for a few seconds in order to familiarize your body to the rigors of naval aviation. Once the pilots have finished their training for the day, they are allowed to show off their flying skills. The pilots call this “raging,” and during this time we did some barrel rolls, quick turns, and low-level flying.

SAR Training

The Naval Search and Rescue Team
After my F-18 flights, I was able to do additional training with the Naval Search and Rescue team, SAR for short. I did two helicopter rides with them. During the first ride, I was assigned to be the “victim” of a car accident, where I was deposited into a hard-to-reach ravine for the SAR team to pull me out of. I was hoisted out of the ravine by helicopter, and to speed up the evacuation process, the helicopter began to travel forward before I was fully secured in the cabin. This meant I was flying through a valley, dangling from a helicopter, at high speed.

The second helicopter ride was much less thrilling. We flew to another base in Salinas, California. The Search and Rescue team were required to be stationed there while the F-18s were doing training events over the ocean, because the Salinas base is closer to the ocean and allows for a faster response time in the case of an accident. Once the F-18 training was over, we were allowed to return to the Lemoore base.

Cleared for Flight

Flight Simulator and METOC
The naval aviators in training use a flight simulator several times a week because they need the practice, but don’t get to fly actual jets every day. I was allowed to go into the flight simulator and experience what it was like to not just ride in the F-18, but to pilot it as well.

Ultimately, while the life of a fighter pilot or flight officer is very enticing, I am still comfortable with my decision to be a Meteorologist and Oceanographer (METOC) for the Navy. I’m commissioning as an officer this spring, and my time at Naval Air Station Lemoore has helped me grow more confident in my decision to join the navy, and the career path I have in front of me.

Editor’s note: The Experiential Learning component is required for all ATMOS majors. You can help fund thrilling and educational experiences like Luke Reuschel’s by making a donation to ATMOS undergraduate education.

by Luke Reuschel, first published @ atmos.utah.edu.

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Anna Tang

February 14, 2023

Anna Tang

The Key in our Collective Hand.

"Mathematics,” says Anna Tang, “is a key in our hands that is able to change shape to fit almost any lock in the world.” A senior in math at the U, Tang not only uses that key to model how breast cancer tumors continue to grow despite estrogen controls in current therapies, but to apply for a Fulbright fellowship. In April, she was confirmed as a finalist and will be heading to Germany this fall.

A member of the Fred Adler lab known for its broad range of mathematical modeling work—from rhinoviruses to ant colonies and from sea ice to urban ecosystems–Tang is clearly enamored with math-biology models, which have grown exponentially, especially as they relate to healthcare applications. That interest not only stems from working on differential equations as a precocious youth–and now at the U. There was support from her parents: her mother, a research faculty member at U Health who was quick to instill in her daughter that failure is just one step toward success; and her father, a computer scientist. That her parents are both immigrants from post-communist China, and “not fluent in the language of elementary writing assignments,” they focused with their daughter on the universal language of math.

It turns out that another Chinese immigrant whom Tang refers to as “Auntie” propelled Tang even further into the language of math and its potential applications to healthcare. While working on her PhD at the U, says Tang, “Auntie took care of me when my mother [working as a post-doctoral researcher] and father were attending conferences.” Already an MD, Anna’s surrogate mom often told stories of working in emergency rooms in China. Then, in 2008, eight-year-old Tang traveled to Jiangxi Province to visit her Auntie who had earlier returned to China where she eventually learned she had contracted stomach cancer.

“She had always been so full of life,” recalls Tang, “helping others as a doctor and researcher … .” But now, the woman who with her mother was “pushing the boundaries of our knowledge … was decimated by the cancer that had affected her.”

While the experience with Auntie in China was fourteen years ago, Tang vividly remembers how bleak the woman’s hospital room was “except for one single, solitary sunflower in the vase next to her bed.” While looking at that flower and its seeds the third grader suddenly remembered, of all things, the Fibonacci Sequence–the series of numbers in which the next number is found by adding up the two numbers before it–and how it is found in nature.

That experience was “the root of the wish to apply math to life,” she says. There with her Auntie, Tang remembers wishing she could cure cancer “like you could solve a math problem. … Cancer is a strange land. It whisks its patients away to another world of fear and uncertainty.”

Unfortunately, the intrepid model to Tang of what it means to seek scientific understanding did not return from that land.

An honors student with a minor in chemistry, Tang will work with Anna Marciniak, a mathematical oncologist at Heidelberg University in Germany. In that lab Tang will be working to quantify the mutational landscape of another kind of cancer: acute myeloid leukemia. Using integro-differential equations she and her team will be asking what the mutations of cancer cell populations look like and how they present themselves phenotypically.

Meanwhile, Tang, who works as a TA in the Department of Chemistry, is readying for graduation later this year. She says that Adler, who is also Director of the School of Biological Sciences, “is the most eccentric professor I’ve ever worked with. In a good way,” she quips, then laughs: “He has in his office a list of ‘trigger’ things that he doesn’t want to see in a math model.” The Adler lab is a very collaborative environment, she continues, “always a blast! The projects are so diverse you get to see so many applications of math. It’s inspiring.” In the lab Tang works closely with post doc Linh Huynh, designing models, running simulations, collecting data and talking over fixed point stability and long-term behavior.

It's not every third grader who resonates with the Fibonacci Sequence. In fact, Tang finds doing mathematics, in a way, meditative. “I really love it because you’re just thinking. It feels a little like I can take myself away from technology just working with a piece of paper.” Reflexively, however, Anna Tang recalls her Auntie in that hospital room, and the Fulbright aspirant knows she wants to move through that heady, calming space, into simulations and eventually applications to healthcare.

“If there is anything that can prolong the life of a cancer patient,” she says, “it will be math,” the shape-shifting key in our collective hand that can fit most any lock.

by David Pace, first published @ math.utah.edu.

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Jessica Venegas

February 7, 2023

Humans of the U: Jessica Venegas

Jessica Venegas

I’ve always wanted to go to the U because that’s where I was born.

“I was born prematurely at the University of Utah Hospital. My parents would tell me stories about how the doctors had to save my life. Growing up and carrying that really inspired me to be a doctor.

I’ve always wanted to go to the U because that’s where I was born and ever since I was young, my dad would make such a big deal about the Utes. When I got accepted and I had the opportunity to get the For Utah scholarship, it honestly changed my life.

My parents are immigrants, so I would have had to go into a lot of student debt to get my undergraduate degree and struggle with keeping multiple jobs and helping my family as well. So getting the opportunity to have this scholarship really changed my life. It also gave me the chance my first year at the U to be on the University of Utah spirit team. I had the opportunity to go to the Rose Bowl and go to the games and really get that college life I always imagined. I feel like that wouldn’t have been possible without the scholarship.

Utes Spirit Team

Growing up, I lived with my grandma for a long time and one day she bought this pop-out coloring book and it was about the human body. I remember looking at this and being really fascinated by this. My grandma was the one who taught me how to draw. We would go over the anatomy book together and we would draw. For me, it was really eye-opening. It was like, ‘Oh my god, this is amazing! I want to learn more about this.’ That’s when it really clicked for me.

That passion and that love for science came back when I was in seventh grade and I had the opportunity to take Introduction to Biology. My biology teacher that year when I was in middle school was really impactful for me.

I chose biology as my major because I’ve always loved biology and I feel this connection with it. The same with anatomy. I want to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. I’ve always been obsessed with the heart. As I was getting older and taking more advanced classes, my sophomore or junior year of high school I took a certified nurse assistant course and I really fell in love with that. But then I got into a really competitive medical assisting course my senior year of high school and that’s where they taught me how to do EKGs and draw blood and give shots and all of that. When I had the chance to work at a clinic alongside doctors, I worked alongside someone who specialized in the heart. That’s something I’ve always been really fascinated with. Working alongside him made me realize that it could potentially be a path that I would want to take.

Over the summer, I got an internship through the PathMakers Scholars and I am currently doing cancer research at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. I also had the opportunity to write a book with M.D.-Ph.D. students. In that book, I wrote about how growing up doing art and connecting that with medicine and the human body was impactful for me. For me, medicine is art.”

by Jessica Venegas, first published @ theU.

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