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I'm Nick Peterson.
I'm in the IMP program.
We're in the Division
of Infectious Disease
and Immunology in the
Department of Medicine
in my sixth year of the
program, fourth year
of graduate studies.
Originally, I'm from Minnesota
right outside the Twin Cities
area.
I have a strong interest in
infectious disease and host
pathogen research.
And UMass is a world expert
and leader in this field.
In particular for someone who's
studying to become a physician
scientist, UMass has an
extremely strong physician
scientist group
here, particularly
in our infectious
disease division.
Additionally, the
innate immunity research
here is world class.
And so for those reasons and for
the strong collaborative nature
that is present at UMass and
within the MD/PhD program,
those are a variety of
reasons I chose UMass.
As someone who has a physician
scientist as a mentor,
I have the unique
opportunity to be
able to both be
trained by someone
who practices every day the
future career that I aspire to.
And then also, I
have the opportunity
to experience it firsthand
through clinical experiences
on the wards and through
our infectious disease
clinical conferences weekly and
then also the bench research,
so covering the spectrum from
clinician, physician scientists
through the research.
My name is Read Pukkila-Worley.
I'm an Associate
Professor in the Division
of Infectious Disease
at UMass Medical School.
I'm a physician scientist
in the clinical division
and have access to an
extraordinary wealth
of expertise in
infectious disease
and basic mechanisms
of research discovery
that is almost unparalleled at
any institution in the United
States.
And I was thrilled to
come to start my lab here,
because of this
wealth of information
and scientific expertise that
is in our rich community.
I like being a mentor
because I get to interact
with people like Nick.
Nick is an absolutely
extraordinary MD/PhD student.
And I was thrilled when he
joined my lab for his thesis
research.
He has an energy and a spark
that is a joy to be around
and also really helps
drive our projects forward.
I have a lab that has really
run by graduate students.
I have, of the six people
in the lab, five of whom
are graduate students and
three are MD/PhD students.
And so students in my lab really
are the intellectual energy
in a way that is really
exciting for me to be around.
And also, they they're been
extremely productive which
is wonderful to see.
My name is Kevin Gao.
I'm an MD/PhD student
at UMass Medical School.
And I'm in my fifth
year of the program.
I think one really cool thing
about UMass' MD/PhD program
is that there's a really
broad area of research that's
done here.
So we have research that's
going on in population health,
spanning all the way to
translational research,
and then to basic science.
We really get the opportunity to
be exposed to these-- all these
training opportunities.
And also we get to hear the
really cool research being
done by our peers in the MD/PhD
program that really serves
to broaden our own perspective
about what's being done
and what's possible with
biomedical research.
There are a lot of community
outreach programs at UMass
that connects students to
the Worcester community.
The two that I've
been a part of,
one is called the Worcester
Refugee Assistance Program.
This is a student led program,
part of Quinsigamond houses,
one of our medical
school house's
ongoing projects,
to help refugees
from the Burmese
refugee crisis that
have relocated to
Worcester area,
to help the youths
in those program
have access to social
activities and resources
here in Worcester.
The other program
that I helped organize
is a group called
Community Canvasses.
This is a group of
students across all three
schools at UMass who help
to organize art murals.
You know, as an MD/PhD student,
we're part of, you know,
at least two different
environments, part
of the medical school
class, of course,
but also part of
the PhD community,
and then thirdly, part
of the MD/PhD community.
And I feel definitely very
supported by my colleagues
and peers on all three sides.
Ann and I are joint mentors for
an MD/PhD student, Kevin Gao.
And we both kind of bring
different expertise to that.
My area of interest is
much more innate immunity.
And then Ann's is
much more on the sort
of adaptive immune cell side.
And I think this bridge
between both of our groups
has really been
sort of a fun way
to engage with a
student like Kevin.
I'm very excited about the
project that Kevin's working on
and the opportunity to
interface with Kate.
She brings such tremendous
expertise in molecular biology,
biochemistry.
My expertise is in
cellular immunology.
So just meshing those two,
it's really a fantastic sort
of interaction.
Something that you'll
hear across the board
here is just how sort of
open and collaborative
the environment is.
As a faculty member, I think
it's just a really delightful
environment.
You can engage with people
with very different expertise.
Faculty doors are always open.
People are always really
willing on the faculty level
to sort of engage with each
other and kind of help everyone
along.
So there's incredible
quality of science happening.
But I think our faculty are
really sort of committed
to each other's success.
And I think that's not
something you find in general
across all other institutions.
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