Veena Mandava

B.A., Williams College
Identification and Characterization of Histone Modifications in Trypanosoma brucei
presented by George A.M. Cross

Veena came to us from Williams College with the highest honors and the Leverett Mears Prize in Chemistry. Among other achievements, she was a writing tutor at Williams, and her excellent writing skills were greatly appreciated, by me, when she wrote her thesis.

Veena was my first M.D.-Ph.D. student — a generally brilliant but sometimes highly strung breed — and joined my lab somewhat by default, having started what she thought would be her thesis project at one of the sister institutions apparently without checking the tenure prospects of her adviser there.

With me being ancient, there was no concern on that score.

Veena undertook a somewhat chemical project whose results provided the foundation for exciting ongoing work in the lab. Veena’s early months in the lab were punctuated by research reports for which she also provided home-cooked lunches. This tradition later lapsed, perhaps once she felt experimenting on us was no longer necessary as clinical opportunities came closer.

Veena gave me one memorable piece of advice about the clinical world: If you want to know how surgeons compare, ask an anesthesiologist. It is probably too soon to say if Veena will follow in the footsteps of her anesthesiologist father. All she has to do for now is to focus on her final clinical year.