Pre-med senior wins UNCF-Merck science research award

Yael Varnado-Rhodes, a UW senior majoring in molecular and cellular biology, with a minor in chemistry, is one of a dozen students in the nation this year to receive the highly prestigious United Negro College Fund (UNCF)-Merck Undergraduate Science Research Scholarship Award. These very competative awards are part of the UNCF-Merck Science Initiative, which aims to increase the pool of highly trained, well-qualified Arfrican-American research sceintists in the biomedical and related scientific disciplines.

Yael Varnado-Rhodes in the lab where she works on a research project.

The award includes stipends for her to participate in two eight-week summer internships at Merck Research Laboratories in West Point, Pa., and up to $15,000 to cover educational costs for her senior year. An additional $10,000 goes to her major department to support students and student research.

Varnado-Rhodes, who transferred to the UW in 1997 from Rice University in Houston, is heading for a career as a physician. She plans to earn a master’s degree in business administration in addition to an M.D., and wants to work directly with patients.

“I think it’s important for physicians to understand how the financial and political aspects of the health-care system work,” she says, “so that medicine remains focused on the people it serves.

“My career goal is to work with underserved communities,” she says. Since she is Spanish-speaking, she may pursue opportunities to work in a Hispanic community.

“As a black woman, I believe I can be a role model for younger people. Black female physicians and research scientists are a rare breed, and to see someone like yourself achieving the things you want is an inspiration in and of itself. I want younger students to see that if they have an interest in science and medicine, their dreams can be achieved.”

In the summer of 1998, Varnado-Rhodes became involved in research at the University of Arizona, working on neuropathic pain in the Graduate Program in Toxicology there. When she returned to the UW, the person she was working with in Arizona recommended she talk with Dr. Charles Chavkin, UW professor of pharmacology, about working in his lab. For the past year and a half, she has participated in studies of opiate analgesia and alalgesic tolerance in two strains of mice. In January she presented her research data at the Western Pharmacology Society Conference in Tuscon, Ariz.

In additon to her studies and research work, she is active in Mortar Board honor society as membership chairperson and is a member of the Biology Program Student Committee, as well as the Biology Honors Program. She is also vice president of her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and is a volunteer for the Rotary Boys and Girls Club.

Her father currently lives in Venezuela, where she has visited three times, and she was selected to join a UW-sponsored study-abroad trip to Rome over spring break.

She comes from a family with an international background and was born in Australia. She lived there until her family moved to Seattle, where she attended Lakeside Middle and High School. Since then, she describes herself as having “tunnel vision” about her path to medical school.

“If you know what you want, you need to find a way to make it happen,” she says.

Varnado-Rhodes is the third UW student since 1997 to receive one of the UNCF-Merck Undergraduate Research Awards. ¶

Claire Dietz