Yeonjoo Hwang (’22), Rising 1st-Year Medical Student

Yeonjoo graduated from the Systems Medicine Program in 2022.

“Seven years ago when I graduated from college, I had felt very uncertain about my future. I had struggled during college, and despite having interests in medicine and computational biology, I hadn’t connected my two passions in a way that felt meaningful for me. Fortunately, I started to make this connection while meeting patients in the oncology clinic at UCS as I studied cancer drug resistance mechanisms using computational network analysis methods. This motivated me to pursue my master’s in Systems Medicine at Georgetown, where I was completely inspired by the role of big data in advancing precision medicine. I also made lasting relationships with my peers and with our program director, Dr. Vasudevan, who has instilled in me a lifelong love for learning and the confidence to finally pursue my passions at the intersection of medicine and data science.

Since completing my master’s in 2022, I have joined Emory as a bioinformatics analyst to study Crohn’s disease using innovative single-cell studies of patient biopsies. It has been a long and fulfilling journey for me already, but in a way, it feels like it’s only just beginning – I’m now excited to start my medical studies this fall in beautiful rural Oregon, and I am forever grateful for my mentors who have made this possible for me! I am passionate about preventative and lifestyle medicine and very much look forward to pursuing opportunities in these realms to provide patient-centered care with a systems perspective.”