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Li Ma with fellow lab member
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Transitions and Mentors
It was a bit of a transition when I started at Weill Cornell in 2001. I was excited and impressed by all the fascinating work going on, but I quickly discovered that like a lot of international students, I was going to have to work on my English language skills. In addition, I had very little laboratory experience, so I had to spend some time working on all the basics.
Fortunately, the transition was helped by the wonderful relationships I had with my three mentors: Xin-Yun Huang, Randi Silver, and Pier Paolo Pandolfi. Dr. Silver really cared about my personal life. I was struggling a bit with the language, and she was very patient and helpful. Having loved all three labs, I was most attracted by the research projects in Pier Paolo's lab, so I decided to stay there for my thesis work.
Pier Paolo is not only a brilliant scientist but he's also a wonderful mentor. He's quite understanding about the issues going on in my personal life, which for me is important because I am five months pregnant. I was anxious before I told him, but he was so understanding. I've found that women students tend to decide to have a baby during the last year of their PhD program because the start of a postdoc program is very intense. For me, I want to have both a career and a family, and I'm doing whatever it takes to achieve that.
Research and Student Journal Articles
I am very interested in cancer models and mechanisms, metastasis, development, neuroscience, stems cells, and the basic mechanism by which extracellular signals control cell growth, differentiation, and death.
When I started at Weill Cornell, I met several students who had published in first rate journals, which made me realize that I could do it, too. You study hard, you work hard, and you can get published here. In 2005, I was the first author on two papers, one published in Genes & Development and the other in Cell. And, in 2004, I was an author on a paper that was published in Nature Medicine.
Also, I was fortunate to win the 2005 Julian Rachele Prize, which awards $1,500 for the best research paper published during the year by a PhD candidate at the Weill Cornell School of Medical Sciences.
The School, Its Strengths, and Beyond
My goals right now are to finish my thesis and then to find a postdoctoral position. Eventually, I would like to return to China, where there are a lot of excellent opportunities in science.
Looking back at my time here at Weill Cornell, I can say that this is a wonderful place to get a PhD. There are so many great labs, where such fascinating work is being done. The opportunity to work on translational work here makes it unique, and the school is very generous to its students -- not only with fellowships and housing but with a generous $1,000-per-year travel grant, which pays for students to go to one seminar or conference a year. And the health insurance benefits are great, which is especially important to me with my pregnancy.
Weill Cornell has provided me with a wonderful beginning to my career in science. It's given me a great foundation to build on.
