“Mentoring has been my favorite aspect of graduate school,” she says. Frost’s lab, Claira has mentored several undergraduate students. These consequences may contribute to disease progression.Ĭlaira feeding her cell cultures. Such changes to nuclei’s structure can have consequences like altered expression of the genes stored inside and increased activation of transposable elements-pieces of DNA that can move to different places in the genome. Using cell cultures, Claira has shown that abnormal tau proteins can decrease the tension of nuclei, making them resemble pitted coffee beans instead of their usual smooth shape. , studying how abnormal forms of a protein called tau that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease affect nerve cells’ nuclei. She works in the lab of Bess Frost, Ph.D. In addition to investing time in the student community, Claira is dedicated to her research. “The career days are really exciting because we get to see kids light up when they realize that people who come from the same backgrounds that they do are scientists, and they can be too,” she says. Claira planned monthly meetup events between graduate students and local scientists, coordinated a university-wide panel discussion on diversity in STEM, and organized participation in local elementary schools’ career days. As a third-year student during the 2022-2023 academic year, she became president of the SACNAS chapter and focused on growing the organization and fostering a sense of community for Hispanic and Native American graduate students. Credit: Courtesy of Claira Sohn.Ĭlaira joined the IMSD program and, through it and the SACNAS chapter at UTHSA, has connected with other students from diverse backgrounds. The UTHSA SACNAS chapter officers with guest speaker (in center) José Romero, M.D., then-director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, after a diversity in STEM panel. She also appreciated how the program brings in scientists from a range of fields to share their career paths and how it provides other opportunities for professional growth and networking. The IMSD program’s aims of building a strong community of students from diverse backgrounds and guiding them through earning doctoral degrees resonated with Claira. After she accepted her admission offer, the director of the NIGMS-supported Initiative for Maximizing Student Development in integrated biomedical sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSA). programs,” she says.Ĭlaira ultimately chose to pursue her Ph.D. It reinforced for me that I did belong in research, and after the conference, I started looking more seriously into Ph.D. “Going there was mind-blowing because I got to see people who looked like me and were also first-generation college students succeeding in research. Lee encouraged Claira to get involved in the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), so she went to their annual conference in 2019. , where she first experienced what it felt like to be a researcher.ĭr. During her junior year, she joined the lab of Naomi Lee, Ph.D. “That was an epiphany for me, because while I knew that there was research going on in the world, I didn’t realize there could be a place for me there,” Claira says. She majored in biomedical sciences and planned to become a medical doctor until her microbiology professor talked to her about the possibility of a research career. “He inspired me to ask questions and encouraged me to go to college.”Ĭlaira enrolled at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff after graduating high school. When I was in elementary school, he bought me a book about quantum mechanics written for kids,” she says. “Every morning, my grandfather would take me to school, and we’d stop to get orange juice and a cookie and talk about science. Although he never studied science at a 4-year university due to financial limitations, he took many community college classes and worked in chemistry labs developing products such as hair dyes and dissolvable stitches. Claira Sohn credits her grandfather with sparking her interest in science.
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