Hello, I'm Thao-Nguyen, but you can call me Wendy. At the age of 16, I moved from a small town in central Vietnam to the United States to attend high school in Lancaster, PA. I graduated from Temple University in 2020 with a B.S. in Biochemistry. During my time at Temple, I volunteered both with my congregation in the U.S. to serve people who experienced homelessness in Southwest Philadelphia, and with my church in Vietnam to bring medical care to underserved communities. I'm passionate about cancer-immunology research and serving marginalized communities. In my free time, I enjoy playing Lego, singing, baking, and traveling. If you have any questions about navigating life in the U.S., research, volunteering, and med school application, let me know, and I'm more than happy to help - You're not alone in this process! I took 3 gap years to work as a research technician at the Kim lab, at Thomas Jefferson University. Here, my main project was investigating the impact of tryptophan diet on the immune response in the gut. I also utilized CRISPR to successfully generate genetically modified mouse lines, helping to open the door for many more potential research projects in the future.