{"id":24648,"date":"2025-07-17T11:23:52","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T15:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/?post_type=story&#038;p=24648"},"modified":"2025-07-18T13:52:32","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T17:52:32","slug":"i-completely-fell-in-love-with-research","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2025\/07\/17\/i-completely-fell-in-love-with-research\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I completely fell in love with research\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<p class=\"is-style-intro has-large-font-size\">Bolstered by Clark opportunities, Krishna Gajjar \u201925 enters UPenn Ph.D. program in molecular biology<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-gray-400-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-gray-400-background-color has-background is-style-default\" style=\"margin-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--20);margin-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--20)\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p>When she arrived at Clark University from Nairobi, Kenya, Krishna Gajjar \u201925 vowed that she would take advantage of every opportunity presented to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By the time she graduated this past May with her bachelor\u2019s in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/programs\/major\/biochemistry-and-molecular-biology-bs\/\">biochemistry and molecular biology<\/a>, she had more than fulfilled that pledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gajjar is newly enrolled in the doctoral cell and molecular biology program at the University of Pennsylvania, with an eye toward a career in biomedical research. It\u2019s an impressive journey that was made possible by the robust research experiences she enjoyed as a Clark undergrad, which took her from the University\u2019s labs to Mass. General Hospital\/Harvard Medical School and a prestigious institute in Switzerland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Her earliest days at Clark were an adjustment \u2014 not only to the University, but to the United States, a country she hadn\u2019t previously visited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt was my first time in America,\u201d Gajjar recalls. \u201cIt was a very big change for me, but it wasn\u2019t too hard to acclimate to my new environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<div style=\"color:var(--clarku-color-deep-red)\" class=\"eyebrow  has-text-align-left\">story continues after video<\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\" style=\"margin-top:2.1rem;margin-bottom:2.1rem\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Krishna Gajjar \u201925 on the Importance of Curiosity-Driven Research\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FJNLYeZ35rQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"padding-top:0;padding-bottom:0\">A Presidential Scholar, Gajjar arrived as a pre-med student with a desire to immerse herself in a research endeavor right away. She found that opportunity in the lab of N\u00e9va Meyer, professor of biology, whose research seeks to produce a deeper understanding of the central nervous system and its development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In her first year, Gajjar was the inaugural recipient of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/offices\/career-connections-center\/www-content\/blogs.dir\/3\/files\/sites\/74\/2022\/09\/Plave-Family-Research-Fellowship-Award_2022_F22.pdf\">Plave Family Research Fellowship<\/a>, established by Clark Trustee Lee Plave \u201980 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2021\/06\/02\/plave-family-research-fellowship-contributes-to-the-battle-against-als\/\">in memory of his wife, Ilene<\/a>, who passed away from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2017. The fellowship supports fundamental neuroscience research conducted in Meyer\u2019s lab. Specifically, Gajjar studied how new neurons grow in the annelid worm <em>Capitella teleta<\/em>. \u201cMany discoveries have been driven by fundamental, curiosity-driven research like this,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI was offered my own independent project, and it wasn\u2019t until later that I realized how big a deal it is to be able to do a fully independent project as an undergrad,\u201d Gajjar says. \u201cI learned how to read scientific papers, design experiments, learn and execute techniques, and analyze and interpret results. I completely fell in love with research.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During her time at Clark, Gajjar also earned research funding from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/scholarships-fellowships\/steinbrecher-fellowship\/\">Steinbrecher Fellowship Program<\/a>, the Lisa Anne and Leo E. Beavers II Fellowship, and additional support from the Office of Identity, Student Engagement, and Access, and the Office of the Dean of the College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cClark really supported me in my endeavors,\u201d Gajjar says, \u201cand helped offset the financial costs so that I could concentrate on the research.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/clarkfest\/\">ClarkFEST<\/a>, the twice-yearly academic showcase, gave her a platform to present and interpret her technical findings for a general audience of students, faculty, and staff. She presented six times at the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cClarkFEST allowed me to tailor and communicate my research to audiences who are not scientists,\u201d Gajjar says. \u201cScience communication is one of the most important things we do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright has-text-align-left has-small-font-size\"><blockquote><p>\u201cIt wasn\u2019t until later that I realized how big a deal it is to be able to do a fully independent project as an undergrad.\u201d<\/p><cite>Krishna Gajjar \u201925<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of that work has been done at Massachusetts General Hospital, in partnership with Harvard Medical School. There, Gajjar has worked as a research intern, studying the \u201cgut-brain axis\u201d \u2014 \u201cspecifically how all of the trillions of bacteria in the gut communicate with the brain and how this could be implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.\u201d Gajjar continues to analyze behavioral data and DNA sequencing for the project, working remotely. Among her collaborators is Dr. Marcy Kingsbury in the Lurie Center for Autism at MGH, which is funded by Jeffrey Lurie, a 1973 Clark alumnus and owner of the Philadelphia Eagles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the summer after her sophomore year, Gajjar was one of only 20 fellows from a global field of 800 applicants at the Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI worked in a lab that studied neurodegenerative disease; my project was focused on visualizing neurons,\u201d using a specialized technique to label and manipulate individual neurons in the nervous system of fruit flies. \u201cPeople from nineteen countries came together to work in the summer fellowship program,\u201d she remembers. \u201cIt was an amazing, life-changing experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As she completed her undergraduate studies, Gajjar was honored with the Howard Bonar Jefferson Award as well as the American Chemical Society Biochemistry Undergraduate Award. Her robust undergraduate research portfolio, as well as strong mentorship and unwavering advocacy from Meyer and other professors in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/departments\/biology\/\">Biology<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/departments\/chemistry\/\">Chemistry<\/a> departments, helped earn Gajjar admission to the highly competitive UPenn program. The intense and productive research environments that both embraced and inspired her have begun preparing her for a career in biotech, where a new field of opportunities awaits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-a89b3969 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button has-custom-width wp-block-button__width-100\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-text-align-center wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/departments\/biochemistry-and-molecular-biology\/\">Explore Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Clark<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bolstered by Clark opportunities, Krishna Gajjar \u201925 enters UPenn Ph.D. program in molecular biology<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":24649,"template":"","meta":{"story_color":"var(--clarku-color-deep-red)","story_headerImg":24649,"section_label":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[223,227],"displayed_author":[235],"featured":[493],"topic":[243,162,127,267],"class_list":["post-24648","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clark-community","category-science-technology","displayed_author-jim-keogh","featured-primary","topic-biochemistry-and-molecular-biology","topic-research","topic-undergraduate-research","topic-undergraduate-scholars"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>\u2018I completely fell in love with research\u2019 | ClarkU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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