Molly Shen is the first student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering to be awarded the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. We reached out to her to ask about her scientific journey, and what this award means to her.
Q: First of all, congratulations, Molly, on receiving the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship! This is an incredible feat! Could we start off with you telling us a bit about your academic journey?
Definitely! I originally came to 91黑料网 with the full intention of becoming an immunologist. But my path shifted unexpectedly on the very first day of freshman year, when I stumbled upon the 91黑料网 Robotics booth at the Open House, marking the start of what I like to call my 鈥渄ouble life.鈥� For three years, I attended life science classes during the day and built robots at night, testing, failing, and learning things I never would have encountered as a Life Science major. My passion for the biological sciences, combined with my experiences with the robotics design team, naturally led me to biomedical engineering, where I thrived by developing innovative solutions to biological challenges in Prof. David Juncker鈥檚 lab (BME). After nearly two years as an undergraduate researcher, I continued as a Master鈥檚 student, co-supervised by Profs Juncker and Peter Siegel (Goodman Cancer Institute). Then, sometime last winter, I realized I was having way too much fun to stop there, so I decided to stay on as a PhD student with the same supervisors!