Wednesday, May 28, 2008
B/MD scholar Funke garners NASA internship
 As a Baccalaureate/Doctor of Medicine scholar and engineering major, Katie Funke already has a lot of opportunities before her, but an internship she received this summer may allow her future to take flight. At the suggestion of Dr. Shadow J. Q. Robinson, assistant professor of physics, Funke applied to NASA’s Undergraduate Student Research Program and was offered one of only a dozen spots at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. During the 10-week internship, which begins in June, Funke will analyze data and interpret the effects of radiation on human cells, comparing the amounts of radiation in samples from the organs of astronauts. “They have a system to calculate the amount of radiation different organs should absorb,” she said. “I will verify those calculations and see if what they expect is there.” She will return to Evansville in August and a month later leave for Ireland, where she will spend the first semester of her junior year studying abroad at University College Cork. “I didn’t expect to win the NASA internship, so it’s all coming at me kind of fast,” she said. “I haven’t had a lot of engineering experience per se. I don’t tinker around with electrical circuitry in my free time, so I didn’t have any kind of impressive engineering background on my application. I thought that would be a setback, but it happened that they were looking for someone with more of a medical background.” Funke has job-shadowed doctors and witnessed heart surgeries. She attended the Molecular Medicine in Action symposium, the National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine, and the Deaconess Health Science Institute, where she learned about all aspects of a hospital setting, from nursing and administration to janitorial. She chose an engineering major at the suggestion of her uncle, a doctor. “He said engineering helps out in surgery, with logical reasoning, thinking on your feet, and working with your hands. I love math and science so engineering seemed to be a good fit.” An engineering background also helps out in research and applications for prosthetics, one of her specialization interests, along with cardiology and oncology. “Katie stood out in my mind as being a great candidate, in part because she is pre-med majoring in engineering,” Robinson said. “Someone with interests in both the engineering and biological sides seemed tailor made for NASA. A growing number of the challenges we face as a species are only going to be met when our best and brightest face them in an interdisciplinary manner, bringing multiple fields of expertise to bear on the problem. Any small way in which I can promote this is a worthwhile endeavor.” Funke said, “I definitely want to go to med school, and before this NASA internship it had never occurred to me to do anything involving space. Space has always fascinated me, but I didn’t know I could combine a love of medicine with a love of astronomy. Since then, I’ve talked to professors who have told me that flight surgeons go into space. A flight license and a medical degree can really take you places. That’s always an option now.” Funke is the daughter of J. Chris and Patty Funke of Evansville and a 2006 graduate of Mater Dei High School. Wendy Knipe Bredhold News and Information Services wkbredhold@usi.edu 812/461-5259 |
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