Whiz Kid Wants to be a Research Scientist

Name: Alana Chavaux

Age: 16

School: Sophomore at

Achievement: Alana will be one step closer this summer to attaining her dream of becoming a medical research scientist as she studies under her mentor, Dr. Michael Anch of St. Louis University (SLU). Chavaux has earned a spot on the Students & Teachers As Research Scientists (STARS) internship team at the school for this year.

“We get to go and work in a lab with real doctors and scientists of our field,” Chavaux said. “They gave us a list of mentors and we picked out of seven different projects.”

Chavaux chose to work on a study involving mice that will attempt to understand specific links between sleep and Parkinson’s Disease. “We will get to work on a real research study from start to finish,” the sophomore said. 

Chavaux holds a 4.2 GPA at Holt. She said she hopes to get her undergraduate degree at the University of Missouri at St. Louis and go on to SLU or Washington University Medical School. She and several other students will start next week on a course at SLU that will teach them more about medical testing using animals.

Key to Awesomeness: “I definitely have to give a lot of credit to my dad,” Chavaux said of her successes. “I could have been exposed to a lot of things that could have set me back but he always kept me away from those things. He’s also really smart and never talked down to me.”