Just a year after earning a doctorate in cognition and neuroscience from the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Mwirigi, who specializes in pain studies, has been selected by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) for a Hanna H. Gray Fellowship. She presented her research at an LSAMP event at UT El Paso, where she met UT Dallas’ LSAMP program coordinator, Dr. Juan González, who is now dean of graduate education. “I wasn’t sure that pain research was the career path for me, but it quickly became apparent that I truly loved the work,” she said. While medical school had been her initial goal, she changed course to pursue a PhD in cognition and neuroscience. “We do not have good treatments for chronic pain because early research in animals does not often translate to humans,” she said.