I'm a junior GDB student here at UC Davis with a minor in philosophy. I actually came to Davis because of the GDB major - we are the only school, as far as I know, that teaches One Health at an undergraduate level - and I was very interested in the broad applications of epidemiology beyond just human diseases. Beyond epidemiology, my other main health science interest is longevity, and so I delved very deeply into writing my review paper for HDE 117 - Longevity on epigenetic aging clocks. That paper, focusing on the history and future applications of epigenetic aging clocks, was the one I revised and submitted for the Lang Prize, with the help of Professor Carey. I was honored to win the third place Lang Prize for writing in the sciences, and I intend to continue my pursuit of biodemography and longevity studies by studying mosquito vector demography for my practicum project this summer and beyond.

The GDB major means a lot to me - our advisors are always very kind and helpful, and the wide variety of classes we can take for our restricted electives means that each of us can customize our major to a great extent, which has greatly helped me pursue my interests, and enjoy my time here at UC Davis. Through GDB, I've gained a great deal of knowledge in the subjects I'm passionate about, and I've also broadened the horizons of my interests, learning more about animal behavior, mycology, and virology. I'm now able to pick up essentially any biology research or review article and understand it with a bit of effort, and that broad scientific literacy will no doubt serve me just as well as my newfound skill in writing scientific papers will in my future career. That career will probably be somewhere in public health and disease control, though I want to attend grad school before that, of course!