The Right Stuff
For many students, college is defined by late-night study sessions, term papers and cheering on their sports team. But for some, the college experience also means tackling challenges beyond hushed classrooms and rowdy arenas.
As you'll see below, some students are shadowing cancer doctors, identifying obstacles to healthy eating or designing blood flow experiments in the lab. Others are scaling the Himalayas to interview tour guides and descending into lava caves to collect microbes.
Whatever their particular blend of impact and adventure, research is the common thread.
At research-intensive universities like the George Washington University, students don’t just observe research from the sidelines. They roll up their sleeves—or lace up their hiking boots—and become active participants in discovery, innovation and creation.
Sometimes that journey starts with a cold call to a professor, asking to join their lab. Sometimes a support office, funding opportunity or other campus resource provides the initial stepping stones to a research project.
However the journey begins, students emerge from the experience transformed.
Transformed because they helped advance science and create new knowledge. Transformed because they learned to tackle complex questions with rigor and confidence. Transformed because their new skills position them for success, whether they’re bound for graduate school or the job market.
The five student researchers featured here share, in their own words, a small part of their journey and what motivates and excites them about their work.
Pia Sen
Pia Sen is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in biological sciences at the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. She studies extremophiles—microbes that live in extreme environments. She conducts fieldwork with Assistant Professor of Biology Jimmy Saw and is a research assistant in Professor Keith Crandall’s bioinformatics lab at the Milken Institute School of Public Health. A Texas native, her accomplishments include seven NASA internships, a Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research grant from the American Philosophical Society and first-author credit on a recent study in “Microbiology Spectrum.”
“My laboratories are the hot springs of the Western U.S. deserts and the volcanoes of Hawai‘i.”
Sen measuring iron concentrations in the water at a hot spring in Utah.
If I stopped to think about what I’m doing, if I let myself be scared, I probably wouldn’t be here.
I wouldn’t be crawling on my belly into a lava cave on the side of a Hawaiian volcano with only a headlamp guiding me through the darkness.
I wouldn’t be leaning over the edge of a 200-foot deep fissure, staring down into a crack in the Earth.
And I wouldn’t spend hours slashing through thickets with a machete, hiking toward a steam vent that blows 160-degree volcanic gas.
I’m a microbiologist—and I go where the microbes are. Microbes are tiny living organisms. They’re in our gut, in our skin, in plants and oceans. If life exists elsewhere in the universe, it may be microbial. I study extremophiles, microbes that withstand harsh environments. My laboratories are the hot springs of the Western U.S. deserts and the volcanoes of Hawaiʻi.
Hunting for microbes wasn’t always my career plan. I was never a STEM kid. My mom is a pianist, and I thought I’d become a musician or a writer.
I got hooked on extremophiles from watching “The Martian.” I wanted to experience that firsthand discovery, finding microbes where most life can’t survive. I love fieldwork—the prospect of sharing knowledge with the environment around you. It can be dangerous. I’ve almost stepped into hot springs, and I’m a magnet for snake bites. But it’s addictive too. When I’m in the lab, I think about getting back into the field.
Near Christmas 2024, I took my second research trip to Hawaiʻi’s Big Island. From the plane, I could feel the pull of Kīlauea, the 300,000-year-old active volcano that powers the entire island. When we search for microbes, we rely heavily on local knowledge. Lift a rock on the side of the highway and a gust of steam might escape. Fissure cracks can open in people’s backyards.
On day one, our research team—Professor Jimmy Saw, a postdoctoral researcher and me and a fellow graduate student—suited up in our “uniform” of REI hiking boots and fluorescent vests that make us look like crossing guards. As we piled into a Land Rover, my Taylor Swift playlist annoying my colleagues, our tires crunched over the brittle threads of volcanic glass called Pele’s hair. When the terrain became too unstable, we traveled on foot, cutting through shrubs with machetes. Even at Christmas, the humidity was almost too much to bear. Fieldwork is incredibly physical. I’m glad I did gymnastics most of my life!
The microbes grow on rocks around steam vents and fissures. They form thick biofilms that look like “flubber” from the Disney movies. At a fissure, I lay on my stomach and reached over the edge to scoop samples—a sheer drop below me roughly the height of two Science and Engineering Halls. “This is the coolest thing ever,” I thought. “I can’t believe this is my life!”
On our hike to Kazumora Cave, a 40-mile tunnel hollowed out by molten lava, our local guide pointed to a dead possum on the rocks. “If you’re not careful in there,” he said, “that’s gonna be you.” That might have been the time to turn back—but, for me, curiosity always outweighs fear.
As we descend into the cave, our headlamps shine on silvery-red basaltic walls, wet with condensation. It feels like I’m looking into the past. Just days later, Kīlauea erupted. From our base at Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, we heard the lava hissing.
Our discoveries have implications for everything from engineering to agriculture to climate solutions. We found two new orders of microbial viruses, and I became lead author on my first paper. But back at GW, analyzing samples late into the night, I was already planning my next destination: the Antarctic Dry Valleys. Cold, windswept and blasted by UV radiation, it’s as close to Mars as I’ll ever get.
My mom is not a huge fan of my fieldwork. She made me promise never to go underwater cave diving. That sounds dangerous—even to me. But I’m learning never to say never.
– As told to John DiConsiglio
Paul Gomez
Paul Gael Gomez is a sophomore at GW’s Milken Institute School of Public Health on the pre-med track and a member of the University Honors Program. He works in the Food Environments, Diet Disparities and Disease Prevention Lab, led by Associate Professor of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences Karina Lora, where he is part of a team studying the food and physical activity behaviors of Central American men, including factors supporting or hindering their adherence to nutritional and exercise guidelines that can help prevent cancer. At the public health school's Research Day this year, he won a first-place Climate and Health Research Prize in the undergraduate category for his work examining public understanding of the health impacts of data centers.
“What you eat has a huge effect on your health. To me, food is medicine.”
Gomez with his Climate and Health Research award.
My brain works in colors.
When I’m reviewing transcripts of interviews with research participants—where the goal is to figure out what motivates someone to eat healthy and exercise, or what keeps them from doing that—the things they say seem to light up in different colors.
For example, the color blue is for certain facilitators to healthy eating. If someone says, “There’s a grocery store I can walk to in my neighborhood,” that's a very strong blue: It’s relatively easy for them to get fresh produce or whole foods. If there’s no accessible grocery store, that’s grey, which is for barriers to healthy eating.
The color yellow is for healthy living motivators. Statements about children and spouses—especially spouses—tend to light up the strongest yellow. Someone might say his wife loves Zumba or likes cooking healthy meals for the family. That’s a big, bright yellow for me.
Family is interesting, though, because family members can be both strong facilitators and strong barriers to a healthy lifestyle.
If your children like to run around and exercise, maybe you get exercise by running after them. On the other hand, maybe your kids love sugary cereal, so that’s all you have in the house, or you work all day and the easiest way to spend time with your kid is taking her to McDonald’s. Or maybe you live with your grandmother who makes a lot of calorically dense traditional foods.
The absence of family can also be a factor. People will say things like, "When I first arrived in the U.S., I was alone, so I ate a lot of fast food.” It's interesting to see how different factors intersect and how they might line up to make a person more vulnerable to chronic diseases like cancer or hypertension.
But seeing responses in different colors is just how my brain works. This summer, I worked with another student in the lab on a qualitative analysis of Dr. Lora’s interviews with the study participants. By identifying recurring behavioral themes, we can ultimately think about potential interventions. With Dr. Lora’s encouragement, we recently submitted an abstract of our work to an academic conference.
It’s so exciting to see this research process from the inside, because the work really matters. What you eat has a huge effect on your health. To me, food is medicine. I don’t mean buying some commercial powder to get more protein—I mean getting balanced nutrition from the raw basics that the creator or whatever’s up there gave to us: vegetables, fruits, grains.
Once we identify why people in a community do or don’t eat healthy and exercise, the next step is to design tailored interventions that meet people where they are. If a doctor or a public health professional encourages you to do something for your health, but what they’re prescribing is not reality-based, you won’t do it.
Those of us who do this research and think about these questions daily sometimes make assumptions that everyone knows what a healthy lifestyle looks like and why it’s important. But in conversations with my labmates and Dr. Lora, we’ve talked about how an immigrant father who works all the time and barely has time to eat might not be thinking about how his lifestyle choices can help prevent colon cancer. So we really have to start with education.
My first meeting with Dr. Lora was amazing. We were speaking Spanish the whole time. A lot of her research focuses on Hispanic men, and that spoke to me, of course, because I'm a Hispanic man. I was very open with her that I wanted to be her mentee, to learn from her on an ongoing basis, and it was beautiful how she valued that. I'm really glad to have a good relationship and a lot of trust with her, both as a student researcher and now as her lab manager.
I love that we don't only look at cells under a microscope. If a person has cancer or another chronic condition, it’s not just about the disease; it's about the person. These are fathers, sons, tíos—uncles. At the end of the day, it’s their life. They’re the ones fighting this disease or dealing with this condition. What can help them? What gets in their way?
A cell is just a fraction of a whole person. It’s like a single drop of color in a bucket of paint.
– As told to Ruth Steinhardt
Arielle Segal
Arielle Segal is a second-year medical student at GW's School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS). She is also a clinical researcher in the Cancer and Blood Disorders Center at Children's National Hospital, where she works with Keri Toner, a pediatric oncologist and an assistant professor of pediatrics at SMHS. Segal is co-president of the Beaumont Research Honors Society and co-editor of Fusion Magazine, SMHS's medical student research journal. She directs the Miriam’s Kitchen Patient Navigation Program through the GW Street Medicine Initiative, which supports people experiencing homelessness as they navigate the D.C. health care system. Segal's research aims to characterize and compare patients’ allergic reactions to two vital childhood leukemia drugs.
“People who hear I’m interested in pediatric oncology often remark on how profoundly sad it must be. Yes, it often is. But I also find it optimistic.”
Segal at Children's National Hospital in D.C.
Growing up in suburban Maryland, I often felt surrounded by cancer. In middle school, my mother survived breast cancer. By high school and into college, one grandfather struggled with urothelial cancer and the other with lymphoma.
I was struck by their expansive medical teams—the doctors and nurses who cared for them, as well as the behind-the-scenes researchers who had developed the immunotherapy and other treatments aimed at saving their lives. While my one grandfather died of his urothelial cancer, the other survived after his own T cells were genetically engineered to recognize and attack cancer cells.
I saw how cutting-edge research could bring great hope—and I wanted to be part of it.
As a neuroscience major at Emory University, I did research into Parkinson’s disease, examining how the buildup of a pigment called neuromelanin in brain cells affected mice’s brains and behavior. During a college summer internship at the National Institutes of Health, I worked in a pediatric oncology lab. While also shadowing NIH doctors as they treated critically ill patients in clinical trials, I saw again how researchers’ work could improve—and save—patients’ lives.
I chose GW for med school because I liked the upbeat attitudes of the students I met and appreciated the focus on public health. I especially liked that GW allows students to pursue their own interests—it seemed like a “choose-your-own-adventure” approach to med school.
While I knew about GW’s strong faculty relationship with Children’s National Hospital, I didn’t fully appreciate the opportunities it would bring, especially the chance to work with Dr. Keri Toner.
Because Dr. Toner’s clinical lecture on leukemia resonated personally, I asked if I could shadow her at Children’s, where she also works as a pediatric oncologist. She soon invited me to join her research at Children’s on young patients’ risk of allergic reactions to two leukemia drugs.
Dr. Toner patiently answers my questions and encourages my ideas. I can tell she genuinely cares about her students’ learning and is invested in my growth as a researcher. Most of my work analyzing electronic medical records can be done virtually, which makes it easier to squeeze into a busy class schedule.
I also appreciate getting to accompany Dr. Toner at Children’s National as she sees her pediatric oncology patients.
People who hear I’m interested in pediatric oncology often remark on how profoundly sad it must be. Yes, it often is. But I also find it optimistic. There is so much promising research underway for childhood cancers. Kids can be so strong, both physically and emotionally. I love seeing these children with leukemia or lymphoma playing in the hospital hallways when they feel up to it.
Through research, I’ve learned patience. The process required to launch a study and eventually publish its findings requires support from so many people, from securing initial approvals to finding study participants to submitting manuscripts. I’ve also learned to not be afraid to ask questions—something Dr. Toner encourages and, I hope, takes as a sign of my commitment to the work.
I don’t have to decide on a specialty until after my third-year rotations, but I already know I love pediatrics, particularly pediatric oncology. I also know I’ll continue to prioritize research throughout my medical career. The sadness of treating sick children would be offset, at least in part, by their incredible resilience and the opportunity to work on treatments to help more of them in the future.
— As told to Katherine Shaver
Toby Pike
Toby Pike is a junior majoring in mechanical and aerospace engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. At the end of his first year, Pike joined Professor Kartik Bulusu’s research on mimicking blood to study how blood flows through the heart and cardiovascular system. The work in GW’s Biofluid Dynamics Lab is designed to help bridge the fluid dynamics of the cardiovascular system with clinical and biomedical sciences. Last summer, Pike received a fellowship through GW's Summer Undergraduate Program for Engineering Research, making it possible for him to focus on his research without worrying about living expenses. The Center for Undergraduate Fellowships and Research also awarded Pike a 2026-2027 Undergraduate Research Award, which supports undergraduate students conducting a well-defined research project.
“I'm grateful for the opportunity to use what I'm learning to help people, long before I even graduate from college.”
Professor Bulusu and Pike working with the rheometer.
When Professor Michael Plesniak told my Introduction to Mechanical Engineering class about the many research opportunities available to GW undergraduates, I figured they were meant for more experienced students, not first-years like me. After all, I had no research experience.
But when I approached Professor Plesniak, who’s also chair of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, after class, he readily shared the names of professors I could reach out to. He made research at GW feel not only accessible but actually welcoming to undergraduates.
Friends at other universities had shared stories of professors who didn’t even respond to emails, let alone invite them to join a lab. So I was surprised when almost all of the GW engineering professors I contacted wrote back, saying they would be happy to talk to me, even if they didn’t have a lab opening.
I was excited when Professor Bulusu asked me to join his work in GW’s Biofluid Dynamics Lab where experiments were being designed and performed to understand how fluids that mimic blood travel through arteries, veins and the heart. I liked that his research findings could help describe the physics of blood motion to understand cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the United States and globally. I jumped at the chance to have an impact, especially through research that could help improve people’s health and save lives.
Working in the lab also reinforces the science and engineering I learn in class. Putting that knowledge into action makes it clearer.
Growing up in Rhode Island, I especially liked my STEM classes and figured majoring in mechanical engineering would give me the most leeway to apply engineering to everything from machines to medicine.
The chance to do research as an undergraduate drew me to GW, along with the impressively modern Science and Engineering Hall with its sophisticated labs and cutting-edge technology.
With Professor Bulusu, I’ve been learning and performing experiments on the rheometer, a highly sensitive and precise instrument that measures how fluidlike materials such as blood and gels respond to force and movement. It measures both viscosity (i.e., the resistance to flow) and elasticity (i.e., the ability of fluidlike material to stretch, compress or deform under a force and then return to its original shape and size once that force is removed).
I’ve learned from my research that blood in the human body is both viscous and elastic.
Using the rheometer requires understanding the physics of fluidlike materials that are highly sensitive to external forces. The work is detail-oriented; even the tiniest of errors could have outsized impacts on the results. To get precise, repeatable results, we need to constantly clean and calibrate the instrumentation. I also have to frequently clean the gloves I wear, including after picking up a test tube, to make sure no residue affects the experiments.
This fall, I’ve been working five to 10 hours per week in the lab, along with several other undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.
I’ve been most inspired by the mentorship I receive. Before I started, I figured I’d be left to figure out any problems on my own. But Professor Bulusu, who’s so experienced and knowledgeable, is happy to answer my questions. I’m amazed at how much time he spends with me and how much I’ve already learned from working with him.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to use what I’m learning to help people, long before I even graduate from college. Though my role in Professor Bulusu’s research is a small part of everything that goes on in the lab, it feels good to contribute to research that matters.
— As told to Katherine Shaver
Urusha Thapa
Urusha Thapa is a fifth-year doctoral student studying strategic management and public policy at GW’s School of Business. Her research examines the relationship between business and society at both the individual and organizational levels. For her dissertation, and with the encouragement of GW Business professors Jorge Rivera and Vontrese Pamphile, Thapa traveled to her home country of Nepal to conduct field research on the trekking industry in the Annapurna region of the Himalayas. Her research examines how workers and organizations navigate societal and environmental challenges in extreme contexts. She interviewed trekking guides, porters, lodge staff and owners, and other stakeholders whose livelihoods are closely tied to the region.
“I came here to listen to the people who call this beautiful, sacred and unforgiving terrain home and depend on it to make a living.”
Thapa in front of Machhapuchhre Mountain in Nepal.
I try to keep my head down as I climb the never-ending stone steps. The higher I get, the harder I have to work for each breath. The 25-pound backpack I’ve been carrying for the past week suddenly feels like it has doubled in weight.
Trekking guides and porters we meet along the way recommend not looking up, because once you see the expanse of jagged mountains stretching on, seemingly without an end, the journey can feel overwhelming.
So I do what they say and focus only on the step in front of me, reminding myself: “Inhale, then exhale.” Still, I can’t help pausing now and again to take in the beauty around me.
As a doctoral student, you often hear that “a done dissertation is the best dissertation,” a reminder that going to great lengths can become an endless pursuit.
Well, here I am. After a 20-hour flight across the world and more than 80 miles on my now beat-up hiking boots, I’m standing 13,550 feet above sea level at Mount Annapurna Base Camp. (I’ll later lose a toenail on the descent.)
Conducting field research in the mountains demands more of you mentally, physically and emotionally, but the issue at the heart of my dissertation is important to me, so the journey is worth it. I’m sharing the voices of people who are rarely heard in management and organization scholarship.
I decided to study the trekking industry in my home country of Nepal. Trekking involves not only a hazardous physical environment, made riskier by a changing climate, but also the risk of high-altitude sickness and bodily hardship. I came here to listen to the people who call this beautiful, sacred and unforgiving terrain home and depend on it to make a living.
Some of the workers I meet have been in the trekking industry for 30 years. It’s December, and they tell me the weather is warmer than they are used to seeing at this time of year. With less snow, the mountain looks black. I also see how the workers are adapting to the changing risks of the terrain around them.
Near Annapurna Base Camp, we hear that a section of the trail is prone to avalanches in the winter and are told not to stop there, even briefly. The workers know the danger from experience. During the cold months, they use a different route to reach base camp, returning only when the season has changed. When the Modi River rises during the rainy season, local residents often rebuild bridges to protect their livelihoods. One bridge was rebuilt nine times in a single month.
The conversations I have with the trekking workers and locals, listening to their stories about the uncertainty woven into their livelihoods, points my research toward precarity—the insecurity that comes with seasonal work that is physically demanding and hazardous.
As we trek toward base camp, we walk from one mountainside village to another. At sunset, we retire to family-run lodges, traditionally known as tea houses. Over warm, home-cooked meals, the workers trade stories late into the night.
I notice they often talk about their work through metaphors and with laughter. You can hear the thrill and sorrow in their voices as they described perils like near-fatal falls or running from Himalayan bears.
Many hope their children will not have to go into the same line of work.
But there is also an acceptance of the reality of the situation, that their economic need and limited options necessitate the risks.
In accepting the reality of the dangers they face, the workers have developed practical skills and knowledge over the years to navigate the terrain and respond to changing conditions.
Those who work and live in this area do not assign positive or negative meanings to the mountain or the conditions it brings. They accommodate multiple meanings without rejecting or resolving danger to continue their work. The mountain is both threatening and sustaining. It is a source of risk and a source of livelihood. A place they fear and a place they call home.
— As told to Brook Endale
Photography by William Atkins unless otherwise indicated.