Bilan Yakoub wears many hats, and one of them is as a storyteller.
In February, the third-year Morrill Scholar in neuroscience got a chance to speak about her research work at the Emerging Research National Conference in Washington, D.C. Her talk spun out of brain imaging research she did through the Student Experiences in Entrepreneurial Development (SEED) Program as part of a University of Pennsylvania team.
The SEED program gave Yakoub the opportunity to invest more time in research in her field. As a pre-med student, Yakoub was excited to work on a project focused on Alzheimer's disease and was honored to present her work among many scholars. “I was so passionate about the project that I took part in over the summer. It was definitely hard for me to keep my presentation under five minutes,” Yakoub said. “I was very nervous to put this together in front of judges with PhDs and obviously way more older and accomplished than me, but I found that it just came out well because I was so invested and actually enjoyed the work that I did.”
Her team's project focused on looking through super-resolution microscopes at sections of brain tissues to find specific proteins that could have the abnormal modifications causing Alzheimer's. But this kind of scientific research is just one aspect of Yakoub's passion for medicine.
Another side to Yakoub will emerge at TEDxOhioStateUniversity next year, where she will lead the student group which hosts events where speakers spread innovative ideas about new developments in technology, entertainment, and design.
During Black History month this year, Yakoub led a collaboration between TEDx and the Undergraduate Society of Black Leaders for an event called Black Futures Matter. She said she likes finding overlooked stories relating to the health disparities found across her native central Ohio. “I really like anything to do with storytelling and seeing all the ideas or seeing all the work that [TEDx] did in previous years sparked something for me,” Yakoub said. “I was eventually able to spearhead a collaboration and actually put something forward serving a demographic that wasn't typically served in the organization's past.”
Someday, the future doctor said she hopes to combine her medical practice with her attention to social justice to ensure greater fairness and equity in the health field. “My interests in pursuing a career in health care is definitely aligned with my commitment to social justice, and things of that sort, especially because there are a lot of health disparities looking at it from a racial lens,” Yakoub said.