IWU GRADUATE 2011
BIOLOGY MAJOR
MASTERS IN PUBLIC HEALTH, WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY (2014)
MD CANDIDATE, WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY (2018)
IWU has played a significant role in my professional, personal, and spiritual development that has helped to develop who I am today. I am so grateful for all the professors that I was able to work with as they prepared me well for what was to be expected in professional school, but that's not all, I'm grateful to have visited with them in their homes, play with their children, learn from them as they gave me life advice, and call them friends. Whether it was joking around with Dr. Conrad, spending way too much time in the lab and going to the Global Missions Health Conference with Dr. Jones, paddle-boating at Dr. Brinkman's house, listening to Mr. Briscoe's crazy stories in the prep room, getting my classes sorted out with Cheryl Edris, hanging out with Katie Rudy while TAing class, ordering research materials with Juanita Higley and Charlotte Sallade, doing everything wrong in Organic Chemistry with Dr. Lakanen, having fun figuring out Biochemistry with Dr. Linger, or chatting about life with Dr. Tripp... There are too many memories for me to recount, but I am more than grateful for what all the professors have done to encourage me to achieve my dreams. IWU also helped me to develop life-long friendships and plenty of opportunities to cultivate those relationships. I would have never experienced many of the opportunities I have enjoyed if it weren't for the role IWU has played in my life.
Since graduating in December of 2011, I worked for 6 months as a medical technician at Laboratory Corporation of America processing and testing blood serum samples for hormones and cancers. I then went on to get my Master's degree in Public Health with a concentration in Global Health from Wright State University. While getting my MPH, I started my own Non-Profit organization called The Rural Amazonian Health Initiative working in partnership with People of Peru Project and Project Hope Amazon (a name given to active missions in the Peruvian Amazon through Global Partners, the missions arm of the Wesleyan church). While in my second year at IWU, I went on my very first mission trip to the Peruvian Amazon with other pre-medical and nursing students, and I have been returning every year with medical teams serving one of the most rural regions in the world. In August 2014 I started Medical School at Wright State University with hopes to pursue Emergency Medicine or Internal Medicine with a sub-specialty in Infectious Disease. My road to medical school had many different stops along the way but I have learned more about myself and my passions that will inevitably help me as a future physician, and I can't wait for what God has in store for my future.