By Angelina Girgis

As a child in Vietnam, Tracy Tran helped her family run a small business importing porcelain products from China and assumed she would follow in their footsteps. Neither of her parents had a college degree, and they worked very hard to support Tran and her sister. Once her parents finally had the resources, they used their life savings to send their two daughters to the U.S. to pursue better educational opportunities. When Tran left home at 18 years old to pursue her bachelor’s degree, the possibility of a career in science had never crossed her mind.

It was a microbiology lab course at Santa Ana College that made Tran realize that she loved working with her hands, asking questions, making observations and drawing conclusions. Her instructor encouraged her to give research a try, and she applied for summer research programs for minority students.

After completing her associate’s degrees in chemistry and biological sciences, Tran served as an HHMI Summer Research Scholar at California State University (CSU), Fullerton, where she was first exposed to the field of scientific research. Tran credits this program as being the experience responsible for establishing the crucial groundwork for her academic career.

“That was where I learned my very first lessons about research and critical thinking, and research has been a vital part of me since then,” she said.

To read more, visit https://stemcell.keck.usc.edu/usc-stem-cell-phd-student-tracy-tran-celebrating-the-journey-of-a-budding-developmental-biologist/.