Jasmine Marie Chévere Colón

Despite having always been interested in medicine, Jasmine had long been aware that the direct patient care side of the discipline was not her main interest. Instead, she had always been attracted to the Research and Development side of things; a theory that was later confirmed through her lived experiences. One of those experiences was Hurricane Maria, a natural disaster that devastated her island.

Although the hurricane’s effect was felt by many sectors of the typical Puerto Rican’s life, none were as shocking as the toll it took on the various medical fields. Having many close to her affected by the lack of what we often consider basic services and other lifesaving resources made Jasmine think about the necessity of versatile and adaptable medical solutions for disaster zones. A feeling that was made more apparent as the thought that what her island had gone through paled in comparison to others’ experiences crossed her mind. This visceral realization pushed her to contemplate about ways she could contribute her ideas and brainpower to the solution of this problem. Through programs and research opportunities that took her from a lab 15 minutes away from where she lived to a lecture hall in California to a classroom at MIT, she was able to do just that. By the end of the process she had found what she wanted to study and where.

Jasmine hopes that with her time at Columbia University as a Biomedical Engineering major she is not only able to take advantage of opportunities that help her grow academically but also ones that serve to further develop her creative and inventive side.