This week I sat down with Korie Grayson is a PhD Candidate in Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University and a visiting scholar at Vanderbilt University. You've probably seen pictures of her floating around as she is really the modern poster girl for beauty and brains. Her research focuses on prostate cancer; she specifically studies the landscape of leukocytes that infiltrate prostate tumors in vivo, and a combination therapy with current chemotherapy drugs used to treat metastatic prostate cancer with a nanoscale therapeutic that her lab developed. Her work has earned her awards like the NSF Graduate Research Research Fellowship and Alfred P. Sloan Diversity Fellowship.

We talked about her experiences through her grad school journey. She shares how she managed to develop her skills after two years without any research experience before starting her graduate program. Korie let us in on how she's persevered through her program through community-building (and it's not just with grad students!) , moving with her advisor across the country, and life events. As a first-gen student her motivation and dedication is rooted in her making not only for herself but her family + community as well, she "You're gonna do this for you and everyone else." -Korie Grayson

You can follow Korie on IG @teamkorie