Surviving cancer twice brings student fellow full circle
In her 30 years of life Nicole Vincelette has survived cancer, not once but twice, worked the stables at Yosemite National Park, fought wildfires, studied art, moved countless times between western states and hitchhiked through Alaska. While not your conventional career path, Nicole’s journey to becoming a cancer researcher is not without adventure, inquisitiveness and determination.
“Having a lot of life experience has given me the tools in my belt necessary
to get me to where I am today,” says Nicole.
A Giant Loop
At the age of five, when most kids were learning to tie their shoes and ride their bikes, Nicole was defeating Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
By 17, Nicole and her family had moved from Idaho to New Mexico to Wyoming. Nicole’s father was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, breaking her family apart and starting what she refers to as the “giant loop”–a journey to finding “homes” in Utah, California, Montana, and Alaska.
Though she was living a life of adventure, something was missing.
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Student fellow devotes three summers to lung cancer research
Before the age of two, Sarah Haeger endured two lifesaving heart surgeries at Children’s Hospital Colorado. Through annual health exams and a grandfather who spent his career as an OB/GYN, she understood the role of healthcare at an early age.
“Though I was so little when I had the surgeries, I had to have checkups every year at Children’s,” Sarah says. “I have grown to understand that those doctors saved my life, and I think it would be pretty neat to help someone out in the same way.”
The path to discovering how she would help others was easy.
By the time Sarah started college at the University of Colorado Boulder, she was fascinated with science and medicine but wanted to find a way to gain more hands-on lab experience. As a sophomore, majoring in chemical and biological engineering, she applied to the Cancer Research Summer Fellowship at the University of Colorado Cancer Center.
The application process requires students to select three preceptors and projects that are of interest to them. Sarah was interested in the lung cancer research Steve Malkoski, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and member of the University of Colorado Cancer Center, was doing.
“Working with Steve was my top choice,” Sarah says. “Though he originally wanted a junior for his project, I decided to send him an e-mail outlining all the college courses I had completed and asked him if I could apply to his project. He agreed even though I had only completed two years of college.”
Now a senior at CU Boulder, Sarah is completing her third summer as Malkoski’s student fellow.
Continue reading in Colorado Cancer Blogs