Cecelia Curtis

I'm currently an emergency medical technician and I'm pursuing my paramedic degree at a community college. Through my work in EMS, I've discovered a deep love for emergency medicine, and I've recently been accepted into Brown's PLME, the BSMD program, where I'll continue my pre-med studies. My grandmother has been a huge inspiration - she's a reconstructive surgeon who has worked with Doctors Without Borders, and I actually got to visit her in Jordan at a burn center where she was working. That experience definitely fueled my passion for this field. My goal moving forward is to go into emergency surgery and become a reconstructive surgeon, whether that's working in a Level 1 trauma center somewhere in the United States or directly following her footsteps and working with Doctors Without Borders. I founded Brewed in Health, a youth-led nonprofit that focuses on nutrition education and availability for healthcare providers and various groups in our community. We've created educational coloring book pages and puzzles where youth can learn about electrolytes and how nutrition affects their body systems. We're also working on creating nutritious meals for night care workers at hospitals and for EMS - as somebody who's in EMS, there's been a lot of nights where there's not as many places open and not a lot of availability for nutritious meals. Beyond medicine, I'm passionate about music and play oboe in my local youth orchestra. I also love robotics and entrepreneurship, and I'm currently working with an iGEM team - last year, our team created a test for triple negative breast cancer. I love biomedical engineering and creating machines to make healthcare a better place for everybody.