Leila-Belle Nuryan

Leila is a rising senior at the University of California, Santa Cruz, majoring in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology. Leila aspired to study Business with the goal of an MBA. After a family member’s illness diagnosis, Leila gained a unique and intimate perspective on the field of medicine and committed to work towards becoming an empathetic, compassionate, and caring physician. In addition to coursework, Leila is a certified Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), and volunteers as a Blood Donor Ambassador and Disaster Shelter Associate. Leila has become involved with the Boeger lab at UCSC, and hopes the YSERE program will afford the opportunity to gain experience in the fundamentals of scientific discovery to craft an undergraduate research project and advance efforts towards obtaining an MD-Ph.D.