Meet Mona Minkara

In this week's C&EN, this profile of Northeastern University professor Mona Minkara: 

At age 7, Mona Minkara was diagnosed with macular degeneration and cone-rod dystrophy, which eventually led to blindness. A doctor “point-blank told my mom that it wasn’t worth spending a penny on my education,” she recalled years later as she delivered a speech at her commencement from Wellesley College.

Minkara completed her PhD in chemistry at the University of Florida, and in 2019, she joined the faculty at Northeastern University in Boston. Her lab uses computational simulation techniques to investigate chemical interactions at the air-water interface in the lungs. The lab aims to simulate pulmonary surfactants—naturally occurring mixtures of proteins and lipids that coat the inside of the lungs’ winding passageways and keep them from collapsing. Drug developers could one day use the simulation data to possibly develop better therapeutics.

I know it's a cliche, but her profile is genuinely inspiring. Read the whole thing.