PAIRS Program Class of 2013

Eleven medical students of the Boston University School of Medicine Class of 2013 participated in the 2009-2010 PAIRS Program. Below, learn more about each of these students.

Maria Badaracco

Maria grew up in nearby Brookline, MA, and went to college at Northwestern University in Chicago, where she studied math and political science. After graduation, she tried out a couple careers , including teaching and consulting, before deciding to go to medical school. She also completed a Masters degree in Economics at the London School of Economics.

Before starting medical school, she worked at the University of Chicago Hospitals as a research coordinator in the Rheumatology department.

Maria really enjoys running, competing in triathlons, reading, cooking, and traveling.

Greg Bever

Greg Bever grew up in Linwood, Michigan, right where the thumb meets the rest of the mitten along Lake Huron. In 2009, he completed his undergraduate degree at Albion College majoring in biology. During his collegiate years, Greg participated in summer research programs at the University of Michigan investigating the blood clotting protein von Willebrand factor (VWF) and at Mount Sinai Medical Center working on signaling pathways in retinal cells. He also went on a medical relief brigade to Honduras and volunteered in an emergency room during his time in undergrad.

Greg is a fan of most sports with his biggest passion being hockey. His favorite part about living in Boston is being able to sample the many great restaurants that the city has to offer.

Melissa Ghulam

Melissa Ghulam is a first year MD/PhD student at Boston University School of Medicine. She was born in Karachi, Pakistan and grew up near Tampa, FL until high school when she moved to Atlanta, GA. She graduated in 2006 from Emory University majoring in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology. While at Emory, she worked on a research study involving facial/auditory discrimination in chimpanzees at the Yerkes Primate Research Center. After graduation, she worked for a year at Macro International, a public health research company in Atlanta, GA on a children’s mental health study. In 2007, she began the Master’s in Medical Sciences Program at BUSM and did research looking at differences in the density and distribution of GABA-B receptors in Broca’s Area (BA 44/45) of post-mortem autistic and control brains. She is interested in child development, particularly in the neurobiological basis of autism and other related developmental disorders.

Her interests out of school include camping, hiking and backpacking, snowboarding, and pretty much anything active. She also enjoys reading and traveling.

Emily Kidd

Emily Kidd grew up in Rochester, Minnesota. She graduated in May 2009 from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with a BS degree in Neuroscience and a minor in Nonprofit Management. During college, Emily did neuroscience research on drug addiction in animal models and public health research on cardiovascular disease. In the summers, Emily worked in a prostate cancer research lab. She also spent a month in Durban, South Africa through a health volunteer abroad program.

In her spare time, Emily enjoys going to plays, exercising, reading, traveling and volunteering.

Jeremy Kim

Jeremy Kim was born in Queens, NY and raised in Manhasset, NY. He graduated in 2009 from Washington University in St. Louis with degrees in Biology and the multidiscipline Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology. During undergrad, he had two separate experiences in research: one with glucose sensors in yeast at WashU and another with modeling ALS in Drosophila at Mount Sinai (NY). He also spent two summer months in Cambodia primarily teaching English classes to seminary students.

In his spare time, Jeremy loves to relax with his friends, play basketball, try new foods, go bowling, watch movies, travel and root for the Yankees and Knicks.

Stanley Lau

Stanley Lau is from Quincy, MA. He completed his undergraduate studies at Boston University in 2008 with a double major in BMB (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) and Psychology and a minor in Public Health. Stanley has done research in several fields.

As an undergrad, he was involved in pharmacological research at Vertex Pharmaceuticals as well as muscle development research at Boston University.

In the year before he entered medical school, he worked at Boston Medical Center doing immunobiology research.

Ashleigh Menhadji

Ashleigh Menhadji was born and raised in Southern California. She graduated the University of California, Irvine with a B.S. in Neurobiology and a B.A. in Psychology and Social Behavior. While in school, she participated in clinical research as part of the Emergency Medicine Research Associates Program. She completed a study looking at the relationship between intracranial pressure monitors and ultrasounds of the optic nerve sheath diameter indicative of increased pressure. Before starting medical school, she spent a year taking cooking and dancing classes and taught MCAT prep for Princeton Review.

When not busy with school, Ashleigh enjoys cooking, baking, traveling, dancing, shopping and playing games like scrabble and scategories.

Katrin Sadigh

Katrin Sara Sadigh was born in Shiraz, Iran, and moved with her family to the United States as a young child. She and her twin brother, younger brother and sister grew up mostly in Connecticut, where most of her family has settled. Katrin graduated from Wellesley College with a double major in English and Psychology, fascinated by the inner workings of the brain, Shakespeare and French and English literature from the 1800s. She worked as a Peace Corps health education volunteer in a small coastal village in Kenya. Upon her return to the States, Katrin moved to Vermont to complete a post-baccalaureate pre-medical program (not without a few courses on Tolkien and Russian literature) and to work at the University of Vermont in clinical vaccine trials. Her interest in medicine centers on international health and global health disparities.

She devotes as much time as possible to literature, both reading and writing, to film, to exploring cities and woods, and spending time with family and friends.

Lauren Scott

Lauren Scott grew up in “the sticks” outside of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. She moved to the other side of the country to attend McMaster University for undergraduate study (Hons. B.Sc.), and then back to the west coast for graduate school. Her doctoral work focused on the design and synthesis of new metal-binding compounds as potential Alzheimer’s disease therapies (Ph.D. Medicinal Inorganic Chemistry, with Dr. Chris Orvig). In between school and lab, Lauren performed some chemistry magic shows for kids, did a bit of traveling and a lot of snowboarding and swimming. She never gets too busy to read a good book (only fiction) and has dabbled in entrepreneurship by starting a science consulting company.

Since moving to Boston, she has enjoyed exploring the city and (painfully slowly) learning Spanish one word at a time.

Flint Wang

Flint Wang grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana but has lived throughout the Midwest. He graduated in 2009 from Duke University with a double major in Biology and Cultural Anthropology.

During his undergraduate years, he did research on the effects of allergens on esophageal infections and on the effect of marijuana on working memory in rats.

In his spare time, Flint enjoys dancing along to music videos, watching reality television, and finally discovering what big city life is all about.

Natalie Witek

Natalie Witek attended Loyola University Chicago for her undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology and received a Spanish Language minor. There she researched the effects of stress hormones on the male rat brain. She volunteered her time at a local Spanish-speaking refugee clinic and helped start a student-led social justice group at her school.

In her free time, she enjoys traveling, snowboarding, and painting.