Tien Thai

Pronouns: she/her

Current Research Project: For me, the importance of research lies in its application: the bridge between science and people. My previous research work aimed to look at bacterial infections of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and antibiotic implications in treating these chronic infections in cystic fibrosis patients. I am currently pivoting to another aspect of translational medicine in Dr. Ru-Rong Ji's Lab where I hope to work with cancerous mice models and analyze mechanisms of pain/methods to pain relief--with hopeful applications to cancer patients enduring cancer treatments.

How she got involved with research: I was able to independently first search through many primary investigators where I was able to narrow down my searches to a few topics of interest: neurosience and anesthesiology. From there, I looked at the PI's that worked in those areas and viewed their publications to look for topics that resonated with: for me this was neuropathic pain and working with mice models. I approached the PI's by cold emailing where I laid out my qualifications and my interests in their work. This was followed by an interviewed process where the PI learned about me, but also importantly I learned about the PI and if the lab was a good fit for my learning journey.