After being born and living in Turkey my whole life, I came to the US for college to study biological sciences at the University of Chicago. When the laboratory research internship I found for the summer of my first year was cancelled due to COVID-19, I joined a resume match program of my school’s Career Advancement Office, which matched students with employers based on experience and preferences. It was initially through this program that I matched with the Pediatric Cancer Data Commons (PCDC) and started working as their undergraduate summer intern. Later, this internship extended into a part-time job, and I worked with them for nearly a year. Previously in high school, I had worked with a non-profit organization called Cancer Warriors (Kanser Savaşçıları) for more than a year. Through this organization, I had visited the pediatric hematology and oncology departments of an...
