Congratulations to 2017-2018 Outstanding Bachelor of Science Award Recipient, Alice Summer Tang!
Alice Tang, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering, is the school’s 2018 Outstanding Student Award winner at commencement. In the fall she will begin an M.D./Ph.D. program at UC San Francisco.
What was your favorite class at UCLA and why?
This is a hard question as I have many. BE100, Bioengineering Fundamentals with Professor Daniel Kamei, was the first class where I feel in love synthesizing our broad knowledge into applications like understanding drugs and treatments. Then classes like BE 260, Neuroengineering with Professor Wentai Liu, was a class where I enjoyed the other side of the spectrum with understanding devices and signal processing, while listening to interesting research talks about current applications in the field! For me, the beauty of bioengineering is that there is the freedom to be broad, while we master the dexterity needed to interface across engineering, sciences, and communications into important applications that can impact the world.
What was your favorite UCLA memory?
My favorite UCLA memories are from moments of bonding as a community. Moments like working late and talking about radios in the ELFIN (Electron Losses and Fields Investigation) satellite team, inspiring freshman to love science and research through the URC (Undergraduate Research Center)-Sciences, sharing background stories with the members in my lab.
Were you part of research lab? If so, what did you do?
Yes! I worked in the Neurovascular Imaging Research Core Lab with Dr. Fabien Scalzo. I worked on projects that involve developing algorithms for medical image analysis, for applications like co-registration of images and providing quantitative metrics to evaluate neurovascular treatments.
What are your plans after graduation?
I plan to pursue a combined M.D. and Ph.D. degree program at UC San Francisco! As a physician-scientist, I can continue my love of bioengineering and work at the intersection between scientific advances and medicine to develop new therapies and treatments.