Tales from a travelling Masters Programme
Emily Wenz is currently a Visiting Scholar in the Paracchini Neurogenetics Group within the Cellular Medicine Division of the School of Medicine. She will be in St Andrews until 17 March undertaking an internship as part of the travelling Masters EMCL++ Programme.
The EMCL++ programme recognises the benefits of partnership between different universities to deliver the best opportunities for teaching neuroscience and linguistics. Emily has spent time at the three academic partners in the programme, University Ghent (UGENT), University of Groningen (RUG), and University of Eastern Finland (UEF).
The programme appealed to Emily as she enjoys traveling and learning about different languages and customs. She noted that this programme was not only a great opportunity to learn more about the biological aspects of language but to experience new countries and cultures. Some of the highlights for her have been experiencing changing seasons, snow, historic cities and making new connections. When asked what she thought so far of her stay in St Andrews, Emily enthusiastically replied, “St Andrews is gorgeous, and the research is always interesting.”
Originally from Southern California, Emily completed her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology along with a BA in Spanish from the California Lutheran University. She is currently in the second year of the Masters programme. Emily chose to work with the Paracchini Group because of their variant research in a language central disorder, which bridges Emily’s background in biochemistry to her Masters work. Emily is interested in Neurogenetics because of the propensity to discover the origins of functionality and dysfunction in the body. This work is aligned with what Emily would like to pursue in the future and hopes to continue the connection with St Andrews and Dr Paracchini as part of her thesis.
As for the future, after St Andrews Emily plans spend the remainder of her Masters Programme in London gathering more experience before pursuing a PhD. She hopes to continue to research into linguistic neurology and disorders on a genetic and cellular level. She said, “The complex interconnectivity of the human body is still being discovered and I hope to help with those discoveries”.
The School of Medicine values opportunities to participate in exchange through Visiting Scholar initiatives and internships across UK, European and worldwide university networks.
