Maria Jones-Muhammad

As long as you don’t see what you want to do or who you are as insignificant or small, you can achieve great things. Science is an amazing field to have a career in. It allows you to discover things that no one else may have even thought of before. You can do it. Something to keep in mind is that you are not where you are in spite of who you are, but because of who you are.

I was always a curious child, observing the things that happened around me and the behaviors of other people. I always had questions about why and how certain scenarios of behavior or disease worked the way they did. These questions resulted in my desire to look for answers. After learning that I could not only answer questions that I had, but also make a living out of it through science, I was convinced that a career in science would be the best match for me.

I know of four of my family members that are or have been involved in science and medicine or the general STEM area. My late grandmother and grandfather are the earliest that I know of. My grandmother was involved in the general STEM area, where she received her PhD in education administration, specializing in mathematics, from Jackson State University in Mississippi, and served as a college professor for over 20 years. My grandfather was a family physician in the rural area of Mound Bayou, Mississippi.  His daughter (my aunt) has taken over where he left off, serving as a nurse practitioner for Mound Bayou and well as Cleveland, Mississippi and Shaw County. My mother taught biology, chemistry and medical genetics to high school students for over 15 years. I am not sure if I have any family members that have worked on the other side of science and medicine in the biomedical research field, but I believe that I am the first in my family to do so.