About Me

I am a first-generation South Sudanese American woman who was born and raised in Nebraska. My parents migrated from Sudan at the ages of thirteen and sixteen in 1996 to the United States due to the Second Sudanese civil war. Before they could settle down in one place, my parents moved more than ten times to different states because of the lack of education and they were searching for job employment. Eventually, my parents were able to locate a factory job and we were able to settle down as a family in Grand Island, Nebraska. Educationally, my parents motivate my 6 siblings and me to endeavor in school. They desire to witness their children to become successful after exploring a journey of struggle. My college experience and field of interest arise from my parents’ immigrant status, fleeing war-torn South Sudan, their sacrifice, and resilience to ensure the educational certainty of their children influences and empowers me.

I am pursuing an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota. As a McNair Scholar, I will graduate with a bachelor of science in biochemistry in the spring of 2021 and continue onward to graduate school to expand my knowledge and skills in chronic pain research. Pursuing pain research is important because it is not a predominant field being studied and large amounts of money go into drug discovery that covers the symptoms of pain without fixing the underlying issue for the pain. I want to use biomedical science to create new knowledge about how the body responds to pain, where the pain originates, and how effectively it could be treated without or with minimal use of drugs. Additionally, I yearn to know how health disparities relate to chronic pain because it is vital that every race has a treatment or cure. This aspires me to become a biomedical scientist. Ultimately, my goal is to open a research lab and take my work nationally and internationally starting in my Minnesota community, hoping to expand to other states, and eventually, I want to do research in my home country of South Sudan with the intention of being a mentor for future scientists while further conducting studies in chronic pain. A Ph.D in biomedical sciences will take my learning to the next level by building on and achieving new knowledge about challenging health issues.