My Interview With Ashley
Dr. Dewhirst is out of town this week so I decided to interview Ashley Manzoor, a PhD student in the Medical Physics program who is going to be my main mentor this summer. She went to Georgia Tech for undergrad because she got a full ride there. Originally, she was going to be an English major and go in to Journalism. Ashley wanted more of a challenge and took an Into to Nuclear Engineering course, and fell in love with it. She ended up Majoring in nuclear and radiological engineering. She got job one summer at the CDC in the Radiological Studies branch. There she met lots of health physicists who told her to go into medical physics.rnrn
rnrnShe’s currently in the first Medical Physics class at Duke. She also considered UCLA, Vandy, and Florida. Coming here was a risk because Duke’s program is not yet accredited. She liked Duke because the program is connected to the Medical School unlike the other schools. Medical Physics is clinically oriented field so Duke seems like it works better.rnrnI asked her if there are any classes that she wishes that she had taken as an undergrad. She said “MATLAB!” I was surprised to hear this because I remember thinking that I would never need it when I had to take EGR 53 last fall. Between what I have seen in the lab so far and what I learned in BME 8 last semester, I have realized what a great tool MATLAB is. She also wished she had paid more attention to her circuits and signal processing classes. She said she chose to work in Dr. Dewhirst’s lab because the lab is so diverse and it brings together so many different fields, such as biology, BME, physics, and medicine.rnShe is now applying to the MD/PhD program at Duke. She wants to go in to radiation oncology. She believes that a background in Medical Physics will really benefit cancer patients. During her first year of grad school she had intensive coursework. At the end of the year tshe had to take a 10 hour qualifying exam. This past year (her 2nd year) she took a few more classes and started learning how to do things in the lab. There is a lot more writing involved in science than I thought there was. She said that Dr. Dewhirst has everyone in the lab review articles to get an experience. He also gives grad students the opportunity to help write things for journals.rnrnShe said it’s really important to be passionate about your work. To get funding for your research you need to be excited about it and be able to sell how great it is.