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Track: Biomedical Engineering
Age: 24
Hometown: Medellin, Colombia |
Miguel Bernal Restrepo's father often said, "You have to throw a lot of hooks in the water to figure out the best place to fish." One such hook thrown by Miguel led to a phone call from a Mayo Clinic physician that dramatically changed Miguel's life. At the time, he lived with his parents and worked on his undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering at a university in his hometown of Medellin. He needed to fulfill a six-month research internship to complete his degree. Mayo Clinic in Minnesota offered him the opportunity.
"I moved from a city of 4 million people to Rochester, Minn.," says Miguel. "The differences in the climates and the cultures were immense. But during the internship, I found out that I loved medical research, and that I loved Mayo Clinic. I decided to apply for Mayo Graduate School's Ph.D. Program."
Now a second-year Ph.D. student in biomedical engineering, Miguel has not yet defined the topic for his thesis project. He is working to complete preliminary rotations in laboratories associated with physiology, biomechanics, image processing and biophysics.
"I am so far from home and family, so I keep asking myself if this experience will take me where I want to go in life," says Miguel. "I think Mayo will do exactly that, and so I continue working hard to pursue my goals. I want to be as educated as I can be, so that I will be qualified for any job I want."
Miguel hopes to eventually return to Colombia to raise a family, teach and conduct medical research.
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