only made it to two of the many #NCLifeSciencesWeek events across the state, but I came home grateful—and thinking about an opportunity.

Monday at the Charlotte Biomedical Sciences Symposium, I saw extraordinary science across AI, cancer, environmental health, neuroscience, therapeutics and more.

But I also noticed something that wasn’t on many of the posters: Patients as a source of knowledge while innovation is still being imagined. We talk a lot about patient engagement once research reaches clinical development. But some of the highest-leverage learning may happen much earlier. I found myself asking researchers: Have you talked with patients yet? What might they know that could change the question you’re asking—or what “useful” ultimately looks like?

I didn’t hear resistance. I heard interest

Jonathan’s high school graduation has me reflecting… I was supposed to be a teacher.

I had a plan, a fellowship, and a degree from Western Carolina. I student-taught in Haywood County, NC — high school mornings, elementary school afternoons — and loved it. The moment something clicks for another person is still one of my favorite things. Getting called across a room “Mademoiselle Hashimoto” is still a thrill — and felt like a multicultural miracle at the time.

A summer contract job changed my trajectory.