Endless Possibilities

Sarah Ranginwala is not ready to make a commitment to a specific career path just yet. A Bronx native now living in Yonkers, N.Y., the New York Tech junior knows her options are endless, and it is something she relishes.

“One thing I like about the biotechnology degree program is that it gives me many possible career choices,” she says. “I’m leaning toward medicine, but I don’t know exactly what it will look like.” A recent experience shadowing a surgical intensive care unit team at Mount Sinai Hospital piqued her interest in hands-on medicine in a hospital setting. “I’m fascinated by physiology. I love learning about the human body, so getting to use that knowledge to benefit people is very appealing to me.”

Having recently added a mathematics minor to her degree, Ranginwala continues to widen her options. She also expressed interest in an upcoming pharmaceutical chemistry class that is part of her degree requirement. “There are a lot of research paths that are open for me with the bio aspect, and pharmaceuticals is a more industry-focused field that my degree allows me to explore.”

Despite her fascination with biology and medicine, she is not limiting her exploration to that field. In fact, she is not even limiting her exploration to this planet. “As a kid, my first science love was astronomy and astrophysics,” she says. Last year, Ranginwala was privileged to work with the late Professor Eve Armstrong, Ph.D., studying subatomic particles called neutrinos. “Neutrinos emanate from supernovas and from stars, the largest in our solar system being the sun,” Ranginwala explains. When these particles emanate from celestial objects as they travel through space, they change form.

“We call them ‘flavors,’ which I think is a cute name,” she says. “The aim of the project was to map the evolution of these flavors through space. How do they change between these forms? And what can we learn from them? For example, can they teach us about the electron density in the sun? Ultimately, the goal is to figure out how elements that are heavier than iron were synthesized during the Big Bang.”

At the moment, Ranginwala is applying her curiosity and rigor to a couple of projects with Assistant Professor Leonidas Salichos, Ph.D., a computational biologist. She is assisting him with a study investigating circadian rhythm genes in bacteria. “In humans, circadian rhythms regulate our sleep and wake cycles, as well as our hormones and appetite. We study them in bacteria because they have a lot of genes that are similar to ours,” she explains. “We’re taking their genomes from online databases and comparing them against one another in the hopes of gaining a better understanding of the evolution of bacteria by looking at their circadian rhythm.”

This summer, Ranginwala will further expand her horizons at Brown University as part of the Leadership Alliance Summer Research – Early Identification Program (SR-EIP), where she will live for nine weeks and do research with an assigned mentor to gain experience in a professional research setting. “I will be studying malaria vaccine development. I’m very excited and hope to learn a lot.”

On top of her studies and investigations, Ranginwala is a writer with the student-run paper the Manhattan Globe, serving the Manhattan campus. “Writing is something I enjoy when I’m inspired, and it’s a great way to express myself.” Covering a wide range of topics, from politics to video games, Ranginwala keeps things interesting by following inspiration and not limiting herself.

“I’m not satisfied doing just one thing,” she says. “I want to stay interested and engaged with everything.”

By Alix Sobler