My name is Sori Jang and I'm a graduate student working in Daniel Col-Ramos' lab at Yale.
It's only been two years since I got there.
I went to an undergrad at the University of Chicago and I grew up half the time in Korea
and half the time in Ohio.
I'm currently working on hypoxia or lack of oxygen effects how neurons communicate or
how synaptic vesicles are effected by the lack of oxygen.
I was born here but I went back to Korea because my dad's occupation and I came back for elementary
school for three years and then I went back and then I came back for high school.
So there was a lot of transition back and forth and I'm actually really grateful that
I was able to come back in high school.
So in Korea when you hit freshman year of high school you have to decide whether you
want to go into math engineering science field or humanities side.
So you decide and then the second you start the track, and after my freshman year in high
school in Korea I was like, I don't think science, math, those things are for me.
Actually lot, very small percentage across go into that field.
I think that was another partly one of the reasons why I didn't think that I was suitable
for science.
I also loved growing up in Korea.
I learned valuable things in Korea, just as I learned valuable things here but I think
coming back to the States gave me a broader feel of where I can go because in Korea I
limited myself to, okay, I'll go into humanity side.
Here when I came back i felt really strongly about chemistry, and I really liked that I
just enjoyed it.
I thought it was really fascinating that everything was composed of these little tiny, tiny molecules
called atoms and it just fascinating how everything's composed of that.
I like, some people really like something broad like universe.
They look at the stars and see, oh, look at the galaxy, we are just a little thing in
this huge space.
But for me I always liked the opposite where I was fascinated by these tiny little things
that actually compose of so many things.
So I really liked about that about chemistry.
But I would have missed out on opportunity to take classes like that in Korea.
Initially my dad didn't want me to apply for graduate school because the concept of a scientist
is kind of foreign to them, especially for a girl and at first when I was telling them
that I wanted to do biology they wanted me to gear towards medicine, as a lot of parents
do.
But I could just never imagine myself as a doctor.
I really enjoy the creativity so one thing I really like about research in general is
that you're constantly thinking and you're constantly, whether it's just little things,
whether you're devising experiments to do, the little steps to build the larger picture.
You have to think constantly to get to build that picture you have to constantly think
about what's the right little steps to take, and also interpreting your data to build the
right picture.
So all of these things require constant thinking and sometimes it's challenging but I think
its a very rewarding experience and I think that's why I enjoy being in science, being
a researcher.