After a journey from Kenya in East Africa to Keller on the outskirts of Fort Worth, Juliet Mwirigi BS’18, PhD’23 found her scientific footing as a student at The University of Texas at Dallas.
Just a year after earning a doctorate in cognition and neuroscience from the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Mwirigi, who specializes in pain studies, has been selected by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) for a Hanna H. Gray Fellowship.
The Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program selects early-career scientists who show exceptional promise of becoming productive academic scientists. Each of the 25 fellows receives up to $1.5 million in funding over eight years, which gives them the freedom to explore new scientific territory.
“Juliet exemplifies the type of professional success that’s possible when individual talent and drive combine with the solid foundation of scientific training available to UT Dallas students. It has been one of the biggest pleasures of my career to see Juliet grow into an incredible scientist, mentor and leader over the eight years I have known her.”
Dr. Ted Price BS’97, Ashbel Smith Professor of neuroscience
Mwirigi — now a postdoctoral research fellow at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis — arrived in Texas, where she has extended family, as a 21-year-old in 2013. She began taking introductory biology classes at Tarrant County College (TCC).
“I assisted my biology professor with the lab section of our class, and she picked up on my scientific abilities and curiosity,” Mwirigi said. “She recommended me for the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation [LSAMP] program, which she coordinated at TCC.”
Through LSAMP, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, Mwirigi found a summer research opportunity at UT Arlington, where she investigated evolutionary mechanisms in endangered lizards. She presented her research at an LSAMP event at UT El Paso, where she met UT Dallas’ LSAMP program coordinator, Dr. Juan González, who is now dean of graduate education.
“I vividly remember him saying, ‘You have to come to UTD. Great research is happening here,’” she said. “He played a pivotal role in my adjustment to UT Dallas. He was so generous with his time.”
González, a professor of molecular and cell biology, was an advisor to Mwirigi after she transferred to UTD in 2015 to work on her bachelor’s degree in biology on a pre-med track in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. González provided a critical sounding board as she contemplated possible career paths.
“From the moment I met Juliet, I knew she was special,” said González, vice provost for global engagement and the Francis S. Johnson Chair for Graduate Education. “Her tenacity, discipline and intellectual capacity are unique. We are so proud of her success.”
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As a UTD transfer student, Mwirigi received scholarships and grants that covered most of her expenses, while LSAMP facilitated a summer of study at University College London.
Mwirigi met Dr. Ted Price BS’97 in an undergraduate Neuroscience of Pain course. Price described her as “one of the most talented young scientists I have ever met.”
“She is passionate about her work, is brimming with great ideas, and has the perfect mix of competitive motivation and understanding of the importance of teamwork,” said Price, Ashbel Smith Professor of neuroscience and director of the Center for Advanced Pain Studies. “Most importantly, she has an amazing intuition for what is important, where science and technology are going, and the ability to communicate her intuitions simply and clearly.”
Mwirigi said that Price’s exceptional mentorship has played the biggest part in her academic life.
“I wasn’t sure that pain research was the career path for me, but it quickly became apparent that I truly loved the work,” she said. “Ted’s teaching was very different from what I’d experienced before. His ability to connect core neuroscience concepts with seminal papers in the pain field was inspiring and transformative.”
After receiving her bachelor’s degree, Mwirigi worked in Price’s lab as a research technician. While medical school had been her initial goal, she changed course to pursue a PhD in cognition and neuroscience.
“Ted put me on high-impact projects, even as an undergrad,” she said. “He always asked, ‘What do you envision for yourself, and how can we get you there?’”
Price’s research is aimed at discovering more effective treatments for chronic pain. Under his guidance, Mwirigi’s doctoral research focused on investigating how pain is generated in human dorsal root ganglia sensory neurons located along the spinal cord and how chronic pain may be better treated.
“I now work at WashU in the lab where they pioneered the human dorsal root ganglia efforts,” she said. “While I was in Ted’s lab, a researcher from WashU met us at the Southwest Transplant Alliance during the height of the pandemic, guiding us through the extraction process for these nervous tissues.”
Mwirigi’s current work centers on cell-membrane receptors, which control cell signaling and are key analgesic drug targets. Using advanced tools, she explores where these receptors are located, how they work and how they differ across species.
“We do not have good treatments for chronic pain because early research in animals does not often translate to humans,” she said. “To tackle this, I’m studying the biology of chronic pain in both rodents and human sensory neurons, focusing on shared mechanisms to develop better treatments.”
Mwirigi aspires to be a principal investigator in her own lab. Funding from the HHMI fellowship will support that dream through a four-year postdoctoral phase and the first four years of a future faculty appointment.
“Juliet exemplifies the type of professional success that’s possible when individual talent and drive combine with the solid foundation of scientific training available to UT Dallas students,” Price said. “It has been one of the biggest pleasures of my career to see Juliet grow into an incredible scientist, mentor and leader over the eight years I have known her.”
To date, HHMI has committed more than $180 million to the Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program, which supports a growing scientific community of more than 100 fellows, 30 of whom have started their own labs. Established in 2016, the program honors the contributions of Dr. Hanna Holborn Gray, one of the eight original trustees appointed in 1984, who served the institute for 28 years.