Vanderbilt medical student discovered passion for lab work at BYU
September 20, 2008
Mentored learning opportunities in the College of Life Sciences opened the eyes of Niki Winters to lab-based medical research, which has become her academic passion. She is currently a student at Vanderbilt University's School of Medicine training to be a medical scientist with a combined MD and PhD degree.
As an undergraduate at BYU, she worked in the lab of assistant professor Michael Stark, studying the development of sensory neurons. "He was always willing to spend time teaching me. He determined what I needed to know in my particular field and helped me set and achieve goals to learn it," she says. "Mentored research was the greatest thing I had the chance to do at BYU and has had a significant influence on my life and career. I couldn't imagine my BYU experience without it, and I can't say thank you enough to everyone who made it possible."
