Major: Health Sciences
Major: Spanish & Portuguese
Minor: Medical Humanities

Alekhya is an undergraduate student at Will Rice College double majoring in Health Sciences and Spanish & Portuguese, and minoring in Medical Humanities. Her interest in the Health Sciences major began after taking courses such as Medical Anthropology and Introduction to Medical Humanities at Rice. Her passion for this field comes from the fact that it brings together people from across disciplines, backgrounds, and perspectives to discover the root causes of health problems and develop long-lasting, innovative solutions that improve people’s quality of life.

Along with the Medical Humanities Department director Dr. Kirsten Ostherr, Alekhya is currently working on the research project “Translational Humanities for Public Health,” which aims to identify specific domains of pandemic preparedness and response that would benefit from an applied medical humanities approach. In particular, she expands global databases of potential survey respondents and presents ideas for the project’s final website. This opportunity has allowed her to understand and contribute to the real world incorporation of the humanities into public health.

During the summer of 2020, she started working as an intern at the Houston Aphasia Recovery Center. She helps administer long-term recovery and wellness for people with aphasia, their families, and caregivers by creating content and facilitating operations aimed at supported conversation for adults with aphasia. She also evaluates communication ability and provides techniques for communicating with people with aphasia.

Alekhya has also been doing research on neurodegenerative diseases with Dr. Michael Stern at the BioScience Research Collaborative since her freshman year. Her research focuses on manipulating the steps by which muscle pathologies are developed, in order to understand what factors influence neurodegeneration and develop new therapeutic approaches to slow down neurodegeneration in humans.

On campus, Alekhya is a captain of Rice’s Bollywood Fusion Dance Team, the Socials Chair of the Medical Humanities club, and an active member of Will Rice College’s Events Committee.

Her experiences shadowing healthcare providers throughout high school and college at her local VA Hospital have also solidified her desire to pursue a career in medicine. After graduating from Rice, Alekhya plans to attend medical school and become a physician/surgeon.