At Stanford, I feel energized to face difficult challenges. I love that our campus is a beautiful, productive, entrepreneurial, and high-performing environment. Diversity is at the core of our society and American values, and it is even embedded in our genes. Welcoming diversity is what makes this country a strong place.  Our differences are our strengths—diversity is necessary for any system to be successful.

My lab uses microfluidic technology to develop new tools that can be used in the clinical setting. For example, we are working on developing a tool to isolate circulating tumor cells in order to understand the disease state of patients. Additionally, we are working on a technology to extract exosomes from bodily fluids of patients with cancer in an effort to identify new biomarkers for early cancer detection. A third project involves funding from the Department of Justice to develop an improved “kit,” which can be used in cases of rape and sexual assault. At the moment, existing kits are expensive, which leads to delays in processing evidence. We hope to develop technology that can be used to isolate cells from the perpetuator, perform genetic analyses, and upload information to databases that can then be used to track offenders. I enjoy that research is challenging and I am constantly learning. The greatest satisfaction that I find in research is when our work leads to a technology that helps people in a clinical setting.

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