Student Perspectives at Yale

She/her/hers Year 7

Hometown: Waterford, Michigan

Undergraduate Institution: Michigan State University

Gap year activities and length: 2-year, post-bac at NIH in Baltimore

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: MD-PhD DEI committee, served as a Biomed Amgen mentor for 2 years, was a PATHS mentor for one year, co-created the annual MD-PhD Inclusive Leadership module.

Something outside of academia you are proud of: I recently gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.

Also an academic PASS mentor

He/him/his Year 4

Hometown: Karaman, Turkey

Undergraduate Institution: University of Connecticut

Gap year activities and length: 2 research years at the Jackson Laboratory!

She/her/hers Year 5

Hometown: Cavite, Philippines / San Diego, California

Undergraduate Institution: UCLA

Gap year activities and length: 2 years as a Postbac Fellow at the NIH

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: I am an immigrant and came from a low-income background

She/her/hers Year 6

Undergraduate Institution: Vanderbilt University

Gap year activities and length: 2-years, work as a research engineer and clinic coordinator

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: National First-Generation and Low-Income in Medicine Association. PATHS program (Program to Advance Training in Health and Sciences)

Something outside of academia you are proud of: Working on my first crocheting project right now, and it does look like a scarf :)

Also an academic PASS mentor

She/her/hers Year 4

Hometown: Los Angeles, California

Undergraduate Institution: UCLA

Gap year activities and length: 2 years, got married, worked as a lab assistant studying cortical/striatal neurons in HD, worked as a scribe in a cardiology clinic.

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: Co-leader of SAMOSA

Something outside of academia you are proud of: I love fostering guinea pigs and rabbits with the CT Humane Society

She/her/hers Year 4

Hometown: London, United Kingdom

Undergraduate Institution: Princeton

Gap year activities and length: 2 years, Research Technician at Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: Mentorship for high school and undergrad students interested in healthcare/STEM through Yale organizations such as PATHS and HPREP. I'm also one of the Head Graduate Affiliates for a Yale Residential College. I enjoy being an active member of local/national chapters of SNMA/LMSA and the American Physician Scientists Association (APSA) Virtual Content team.

Something outside of academia you are proud of: Baking and decorating cakes for friends!

He/Him Year 7

Hometown: Denver, Colorado

Undergraduate Institution: Vanderbilt University

Gap year activities and length: 1 Gap year doing full time research in my undergraduate lab while also applying to MD/PhD programs

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: I am a first generation American of primarily middle eastern descent. I serve on the board of a non-profit that helps refugee families affected by violence in the middle east, especially the Syrian Civil War.

Something outside of academia you are proud of: Serving on the non-profit board

she/her Year 8

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: SNMA. Black woman. Mother. Taking time off.

She/her/hers Year 6

Hometown: Alpharetta, Georgia

Undergraduate Institution: MIT

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: Women in Medicine and SNMA

Also an academic Pass Mentor

He/him/his Year 4

Hometown: Issaquah, Washington

Undergraduate Institution: Middlebury College

Gap year activities and length: 3 years, 1 was spent backpacking in South and Central America and 2 as an IRTA researcher at NIH

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: Anxiety, high BMI

Something outside of academia you are proud of: I just married the love of my life in the summer of 2023! Talk to me about having a serious relationship and family planning during the MD-PhD.

She/her/hers Year 6

Undergraduate Institution: Georgia Tech

Gap year activities and length: 1 year, I was a Fulbright scholar researching microbial resistance in India.

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: LGBTQIA+, YFLI

Something outside of academia you are proud of: My community

Also an academic PASS mentor

She/her Year 4

Hometown: Alexandria, VA

Undergraduate Institution: Syracuse University

Gap year activities and length: 2 years, NIH IRTA postbac fellowship

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: HAVEN Free clinic, medical mandarin, first-generation, mentorship, career in medical education

Something outside of academia you are proud of: Trying my best to sneak in workouts while juggling lab work and med school!

At Lewis & Clark College, Talia studied cell death in zebrafish neural development in the Weissman-Unni Lab and received the Barry M. Goldwater Fellowship. In 2020 she graduated summa cum laude with Departmental Honors in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology for her thesis investigating the influence of BMP signaling on clonal survival in the zebrafish hindbrain. Through the Yale MD-PhD program, she is continuing to study the mechanisms underlying neuronal cell interactions in the Grutzendler Lab.

She/her/hers Year 3

Hometown: Zhuhai, China / Brooklyn, New York

Undergraduate Institution: Swarthmore College

Gap year activities and length: I worked as a research assistant at Boston Children's Hospital for 2 years

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or DEI-related activities you are involved in: YSM first-generation & low-income (YFLI), MD-PhD DEI committee, and mentoring at all sorts of levels!

Something outside of academia you are proud of: I still dance a bunch, including with a wonderful dance company I joined during my gap years!

She/her/hers Year 3

Hometown: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Undergraduate Institution: University of Pennsylvania

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: Black, women, first generation-low income, no-gap year.

Something outside of academia you are proud of: I have two cats and love reading!

She/her/hers Year 9

Hometown: Burlington, Vermont

Undergraduate Institution: Cornell University

Gap year activities and length: 2-years, research Master's

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: FGLI.

Also an academic PASS mentor

She/her/hers Year 3

Hometown: Los Banos, California

Undergraduate Institution: Scripps College

Gap year activities and length: 3 years, basic science research here at Yale!

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: Being Black in STEM, rural background, small liberal arts college

Something outside of academia you are proud of: My Strava mileage time!

She/her/hers Year 9

Hometown: Poughkeepsie, New York

Undergraduate Institution: Cornell University

Gap year activities and length: 2 years as a Marshall Scholar at the University of Oxford doing a Masters in Oncology Research.

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: Experiencing significant illness during medical training, taking medical leave, commuting to Yale (lived in Norwalk)

Something outside of academia you are proud of: I love to crochet stuffed turtles for my friends' children!

Also an academic PASS mentor

Eva Rest is an M.D.-Ph.D. student. Her research interests include cross-scale computational approaches to heterogeneity in immune responses and long-term outcomes of viral infection including development of autoimmunity. She hopes to use her M.D.-Ph.D. training to integrate clinical care for infectious diseases and immunological conditions with data-driven interventions. Eva is also passionate about public health and accessibility in medicine.

Eva earned her M.S. in Global Infectious Disease at Georgetown University where she studied respiratory disease dynamics and spatial heterogeneity in vaccination patterns in the lab of Dr. Shweta Bansal. Previously, she researched harm reduction strategies for substance use disorders at the University of Illinois Chicago's Institute for Health Research and Policy. She graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University studying global health and health policy.

She/her/hers Year 2

Hometown: Leon, Nicaragua

Undergraduate Institution: UMass Amherst

Gap year activities and length: 2 years doing a post-bac at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. I worked on developing new DNA sequencing technologies to improve cancer detection from liquid biopsies.

Identities, affiliations, experiences, and or SPIDEY-related activities you are involved in: LMSA (VP), MSTP DEI committee (mentorship subcommittee), HPREP, HAVEN Free Clinic, being from another country, MD-PhD Second Look Planning, PATHS Mentorship Program.