My interest in medicine was sparked by mentoring with Donna Sweet, M.D. at KUMC-Wichita when I was a senior in high school. In college I also discovered a love for research working for a summer at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA as a National Science Foundation REU student. I continued to study Chemistry at Emory University in Atlanta, GA while working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during my junior and senior years. At the CDC I worked in the National Center for Infectious Diseases, Influenza Branch, Immunology and Viral Pathogenesis Section and there I learned that I wanted to pursue not only medicine, but also basic science.
I decided to take a year off after graduation from Emory to get more research experience and I was lucky to find a job as a research assistant in the lab of Michael Decker, Ph.D. at Emory University School of Medicine in the Department of Neurology. This is where I found my love for Neuroscience as we explored the long-term neurochemical effects of hypoxic insults on perinatal rats.
Being a native of Kansas, I was very excited to return to KUMC. I started as a medical student and quickly applied for the M.D./Ph.D. program within the first year of medical school. I am now in the Ph.D. years and loving it. Working in the lab of Doug Wright, Ph.D. I am analyzing large-fiber deficits in diabetic neuropathy. It has been a change for me to work with the PNS, but I am really enjoying it and learning a great deal. CNS dopaminergic alterations and how they affect neurodegenerative disease pathogenesis are my research interests outside of my Ph.D. project.
I am honored to be a part of this amazing program and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to email me: kjones1@kumc.edu.
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