Alana Jones

Alana has always been a tremendous source of support and inspiration for her peers. It was a pleasure to interview for this series!!

1.      Tell me a little about yourself; where you were born, where you grew up, what you wanted to be when you were a child.

I was born and raised a small town called Waverly, Alabama (right next to Auburn), and in middle school we moved into the “city”, Opelika, on the other side of the county. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a doctor.

2.      Was there a particular moment or experience that sparked your interest in pursuing a career in science/medicine??

I can’t point to a specific moment when I decided I wanted to be a physician. Half my family worked at the local hospital, and my little brother had severe asthma as kid, so I spent a lot of time in hospitals and clinics growing up. I went to undergrad with a pre-med focus, and I participated in a summer program that was a combination of clinical exposure and research. I quickly realized that I loved the hospital and lab equally, and my experience in that program is what ultimately prompted me to apply to MD-PhD programs.

3.      What experiences/which individuals contributed most to shaping your current research interests?

There are multiple people and experiences that helped me arrive to my current research interest. My dad’s side of the family lives in the Alabama Black Belt, so I’ve witnessed the consequences of health disparities up close. Initially, I thought I might pursue rural medicine, but I got bitten research bug in college. I was also a Latin major, and I spent a lot of time studying plagues in antiquity, which sparked my interest in epidemiology. And in my post-bacc I studied in epigenetic contributors to breast cancer disparities. So it was really a combination of all those things that led me to my current research.

Truth and Service

My alma mater’s motto is “Truth and Service”, and in every class, convocation, you name it, we were practically indoctrinated that the purpose of our education was to improve the lives of our communities. The main reason I wanted to be a physician was because many of those statistics on social determinants of health disparities are about my family and friends. Physician scientists have significant social power, and the reason our education is supplemented by tax dollars is because there is an expectation that we will provide some service to the public.

4.      Tell us a little bit about your current research interests, and your career aspirations.

Broadly, I study the genetic epidemiology of cardiovascular diseases. My dissertation project involves developing genetic and epigenetic risk scores for chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease, but our lab studies the gamut of CVD (hypertension, stroke, metabolic syndrome, coronary artery disease, etc.) using a variety of methods. So I get to learn some about lipidomics, pharmacogenomics, and metabolomics too. Long term, I’m interested studying in gene-environment interactions and socio-epigenetics, i.e. understanding how social inequality impacts the epigenome.

5.      What, do you think, is our responsibility as future physician scientists in addressing disparities within STEM fields?

My alma mater’s motto is “Truth and Service”, and in every class, convocation, you name it, we were practically indoctrinated that the purpose of our education was to improve the lives of our communities. The main reason I wanted to be a physician was because many of those statistics on social determinants of health disparities are about my family and friends.  Physician scientists have significant social power, and the reason our education is supplemented by tax dollars is because there is an expectation that we will provide some service to the public. So I personally don’t understand how anyone could think that they can opt out of addressing disparities, in STEM and beyond. Health inequity exists because we live in an inequitable society, so for the health of our future patients, we must advocate for systemic change.

6.      What does your ideal off-day look like?

My ideal day is off-day is pretty boring. Before we were stuck at home, I liked to travel to visit friends from college. Now, I look forward to cleaning my apartment top to bottom, going for a walk, and curling up on my sofa to binge-watch reruns of Living Single.