Graduating Senior Profile: Biomedical engineering
Caitlin Gray
Issue date: 5/5/06 Section: News
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Born in India, Shah's family moved to the United States when she was 8 years old and settled in New Jersey. Because of her background she is trilingual, and is able to speak English, Gujarati and Hindi.
The University seemed to be the perfect fit for Shah. When looking at colleges, it was important to her that she should be able to continue doing research since she was involved in two research projects in high school. She worked with GlaxoSmithKline during her senior year of high school and had a summer internship with the American Chemical Society and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Her experiences with these companies inspired her to continue doing research and to further pursue a career in the field of science.
She became familiar with the University because her sister had attended to study computer engineering. Shah was drawn to the University because of the research facilities and her interest in the curriculum's focus on both biology and biomedical engineering. She applied to the University's biomedical engineering program, as it was unlike any other school's program at the time.
The distance from home was one that she and her parents were equally comfortable. Also, she received a full scholarship for underrepresented females studying within the science field.
During her freshman year, Shah became a little overwhelmed with the curriculum and questioned her choice of coming to study biomedical engineering at the University. She overcame this challenge through perseverance and dedication.
"tDEC posed a great challenge for me initially and I did go through the questioning phase like many students do. I thought maybe engineering isn't for me. But then I said 'what am I going to do that I would love so much if I don't do this? I said to myself 'no I'm going to do this, I focused on it and it was fine. If I know I have it in me, and it's a challenge, especially with work, I always think 'what is the worst that could happen if I just try?'" Shah said.
Shah did her first two co-ops with Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development. She worked with the Genetic Toxicology group testing the effects of different drugs on genetics. She worked with Centocor in the Bio-Process and Sciences Group for her third co-op where she worked with Remicade, a drug that can be potentially used to treat arthritis.
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