Find Your Mentor

I am a final year MD-PhD candidate in the Pitt-CMU Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), applying to internal medicine physician scientist programs for the 2027 Match. I plan to train in gastroenterology and hepatology and study how fat tissue shapes liver disease. My path started in the lab. After earning my biochemistry degree at Southern Methodist University, I spent four years in diabetes research before applying. Those years taught me how metabolic disease harms organs far from where it begins, and they led to a co first author paper in Cell Reports. That theme carried into my PhD, where National Institutes of Health and American Heart Association fellowships supported my work on how healthy fat tissue growth protects the rest of the body. I served on the Pitt-CMU MSTP admissions committee. At AdmitMD, I help aspiring physician scientists apply to MD-PhD programs and guide postbaccalaureate and special master’s applicants. We work on how MD-PhD and MD applications differ, how to write and talk about research, school lists, and interviews.

Varun is a second-year BS/MD student in NJIT’s 3+4 program with Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and a scholar in the Albert Dorman Honors College, where he is also completing an accelerated M.S. in Bioinformatics. He founded H-AI-Landers, an AI policy and literacy club that brings NJIT and NJMS students together to explore how AI should be used and governed, and he holds Stanford’s AI in Healthcare specialization. His research spans ultrasound-activatable nanodroplets for imaging and therapy at NJIT, allosteric inhibition of ATR kinase in cancer at NJMS, and microplastics in Newark’s urban ecosystems. Varun also volunteers at NJIT/NJMS BS/MD interview days and helps applicants with activities, essays, and interviews.