This summer, I had the opportunity and honor to intern with Dr. Jiong Liu, a scientific researcher at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in the Anatomy, Physiology, and Genetics (APG) department with Dr. Joseph McCabe. During this time, I was able to watch research, explore the university’s anatomy lab, and learn about traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) in the military.
Dr. Jiong Liu has been at USUHS (working for the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, or HJF, which specializes in military medicine and often collaborates with USUHS on research projects) for over 20 years. Before she came to the United States eight months after her husband with her daughter (aged three at the time) for his postdoctoral, she earned her MD and Master’s Degree in China. She says she is lucky to have found Dr. McCabe’s lab shortly after she arrived in the States, and credits this position with making her fall deeper in love with science.
In her eyes, science is more than just running trials upon trials, making posters, and analyzing data. Every experiment is a new puzzle, a new mystery to unravel. The thrill of solving a new mystery brings Dr. Liu back to the lab each day, and to be able to answer a question no one else has gives her excitement. She does not mind spending vacation days or her leave to find a solution to a certain problem. That being said, there are many days and projects when the question at hand is not easy to answer; in fact, the journey to finding this “answer” is almost never straightforward or linear. Even then, Dr. Liu treats each setback, challenge, and hurdle as an opportunity to learn. In her eyes, both successes and mistakes serve as key lessons for the future.
When asked about her greatest accomplishment, she did not limit her answer to one singular event. Accomplishments, in her eyes, happen every day: these can come in many forms and sizes– from completing a successful stain of a tissue sample, to having that “eureka” moment when she provides new insight to solving a problem. When other strategies fail, she does not shy away from using her own way to answer questions, and instances of this are her most meaningful accomplishments.
It does not go without saying that every great accomplishment is not earned without learning something from it. Dr. Liu believes the most important lesson she has learned at HJF is to analyze and assess all of your acquired data. It does one no good to “cherry pick” what parts of the data they want to emphasize or publish– the data from an experiment tells a story by itself, and to miss parts of that information leaves the story incomplete. Gathering all of the elements for this “story” always takes time, a lot of effort, and consistent commitment; to Dr. Liu, one cannot be a great scientist without these traits.
It has been a pleasure to interview and intern for Dr. Jiong Liu this summer.