{"id":872,"date":"2017-07-18T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2017-07-18T16:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reu.engr.uga.edu\/?p=872"},"modified":"2017-08-04T17:11:59","modified_gmt":"2017-08-04T21:11:59","slug":"participant-highlight-kenya-alfaro-2017-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reu.engr.uga.edu\/?p=872","title":{"rendered":"PARTICIPANT HIGHLIGHT \u2013 Kenya Alfaro \u2013 2017 PROGRAM"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s a long way from Long Beach, California to Athens, Georgia, but for Kenya Alfaro that distance is part of a larger journey as she maps out a career in engineering.<\/p>\n<p>A rising senior at California State University, Long Beach, Kenya is one of 11 undergraduates from across the nation selected to participate in the University of Georgia\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/reu.engr.uga.edu\/\">Nanotechnology and Biomedicine Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)<\/a>\u00a0program this summer.<\/p>\n<p>Working with\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/engineering.uga.edu\/people\/profile\/peter-kner-ph.d\">Peter Kner<\/a>, an associate professor in the UGA College of Engineering, Kenya is using novel super-resolution imaging techniques to study how the common cold virus affects mitochondria, a component of animal cells.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to work on neural engineering, such as brain-machine interfaces, when I go to graduate school,\u201d said Kenya. \u201cThis REU experience helped me improved certain skills I\u2019ve learned as an undergrad and it introduced me to the biological side of engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kenya, who is pursuing a double major in biomedical engineering and electrical engineering, says she\u2019s always had a passion for math but also wanted to solve problems and help others. She says her research experience this summer at UGA helped her realize she wants to focus on a career in research in the biomedical industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s a long way from Long Beach, California to Athens, Georgia, but for Kenya Alfaro that distance is part of a larger journey as she&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88,83,82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2017-program","category-highlights","category-participants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reu.engr.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reu.engr.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reu.engr.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reu.engr.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reu.engr.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=872"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/reu.engr.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":874,"href":"https:\/\/reu.engr.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions\/874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reu.engr.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reu.engr.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reu.engr.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reu.engr.uga.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}