
Kiran Dhillon, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Postdoctoral Researcher
I study chemotherapy resistance in breast and ovarian cancers.
I do lots of cell lab experiments working in a hood and taking care of cells in petri dishes that are grown inside of an incubator to mimic the human body. In the main lab, you'll see me doing lots of molecular biology and experiments involving manipulating DNA. I attend many seminars to hear about the work of others, and I give my own seminars to present my work as well. I also co-founded an org that promotes diversity amongst scientists, so there's some administrative work involved with that.
Here's the first step for high school students
It's a really long path that you have to go down before you can start doing postdoctoral work, so make sure that you have that passion and endurance to put in all of those years of schooling and hard work. The best way to test the waters is through an internship, so start looking for those as early as high school. You'll be able to see that research in the real world is much, much different than the science that you're taught in text books, plus, you'll have a head start going into college!
"You're a first-generation female scientist of color - how are you going to do this?"