After graduating from Mariemont High School, I earned my BS in biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California(USC). While at USC, I traveled abroad to Madrid, Spain, explored national parks like Yosemite and Joshua Tree, and celebrated when Graeters started selling pints nationally! After graduating, I worked as a mechanical design engineer for Medtronic Diabetes. While at Medtronic, I learned of the growing problem of diabetes and obesity, and decided to return to academia to research the cell-level changes underlying these conditions. Currently, I’m in my second year of doctoral studies at USC’s Computational Systems Biology Lab.
When I reflect on my time at Mariemont, the considerate teachers always stand out. It was Mr. Ferry (shout out to my Latin nerds!) who encouraged me to travel from Cincinnati to Los Angeles for college. I still remember his signature parting phrase: “go off, do good things”. I have my first grade teacher, Mrs. Smith, to thank for my love of reading, and my twelfth grade calculus teacher, Mr. Miller, to thank for my choice to major in engineering. Thank you, Mariemont teachers, for your dedication to students: you inspire us to go off and do good things!