Dental student takes a year off for NIH research

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I am ecstatic to share my research experiences and lessons with you! To start, I am corn fed Midwestern, born and raised in Kansas, moved to Missouri for my undergraduate degree, and headed west for a goldmine of knowledge in San Francisco at UCSF to pursue my DDS. Currently, I live in Bethesda, Maryland. “Why?” I have taken a year between my clinical training years at UCSF to do research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Specifically, I am apart of the NIH Medical Research Scholars Program (MRSP) and am doing research at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.

Dental student receives award to do research at NIH/NIDCR

Screen Shot 2014-11-26 at 1.04.04 PM Like many dental students, I studied biology in college and did research and worked in a lab. Once dental school starts though, getting involved in an entirely new arena of research can be daunting and can stop students from doing it. Despite that, I still wanted to be involved. I believe that research is the foundation of all disciplines. Our field has been able to advance thanks to new innovations inspired by dentists, and dental scientists who dared to ask questions and pursued the answers. I wanted to be apart of that.