The French connection: My experience as a Hunt Fellow

Abstract

After finishing my Ph.D. degree in 2009 at the University of Washington, I was grateful to be the recipient of the Hunt Fellowship. During my year as a Hunt Fellow, I worked at an academic laboratory in Lyon, France, under the supervision of Dr. Cyril Lafon and Dr. Jean-Yves Chapelon. The laboratory specialized in the field of therapeutic ultrasound and had several translational projects to take new therapeutic ultrasound technologies into the clinic. Little did I realize that a one-year fellowship would turn into a 6-year hiatus living abroad in France and a working relationship with the French that continues to this day. After my Hunt fellowship, I continued as one of the first employees of a French startup company and helped lead the development of a novel therapeutic ultrasound device for brain drug delivery. During the six years that I worked in France, this device was successfully transitioned from animal experiments to clinical trials. This poster explores the work that I started in France on these technologies and which I continue to work on presently. In addition to the professional development it allowed, the Hunt Fellowship gave me the opportunity to pursue a lifelong dream to live and work in a foreign country and to become fluent in a second language.