My CUTF: Happy Turkey Day, everybody!

In the spirit of my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, I would like to express gratitude for this fellowship experience. Thanksgiving is unequivocally my favorite holiday. Beyond watching my Detroit Lions lose, I also get the opportunity to give back and appreciate what I’ve been given. With this being my final blog post for this semester, it’s…

Seeing Students Grow!

Time flies when you’re teaching Spanish 🙂 At this point, we are now squarely in the controlled chaos that is a college semester. Students are juggling classes, clubs, and in many cases like my own, work. From my perspective, both from the student side and teaching side, Pitt students have done an awesome job with…

CUTF Introduction: Medicine and Spanish really be-lung together

Hello everyone! My name is Amaan Rahman. I am one of the recipients of the Chancellor’s Undergraduate Teaching Fellowship this semester. I am a senior majoring in Spanish, and double minoring in Hindi and Chemistry. In the fall, I will be graduating and taking a gap semester before matriculating to medical school here at Pitt….

Semester Reflection: Two-Yard Runs

At the beginning of this semester my Principal Investigator, Dr. Samer Tohme, stressed that this process would require a lot of patience. He emphasized that progress in research is slow, occasionally frustrating, and anything but linear. He compared it to running the ball in football. There were going to be a lot of two-yard runs,…

Becoming a Researcher: Handling a Steep Learning Curve

Due to COVID-related logistical issues, I have only recently been allowed to physically conduct work in the lab. However, in my first couple of weeks at the Geller Lab I have been able to learn a great deal. One great aspect of being new to almost everything I am seeing is that the learning never…

Introduction: Exercising Mice to Help with Liver Transplants

Hi all! My name is Amaan Rahman, and I am a junior at the University of Pittsburgh in the direct-med program. I am majoring in Spanish and pursuing a double minor in Chemistry and Hindi. I was born and raised in Detroit, MI. Getting to know the city of Pittsburgh over these last two years…