Margaret Bohm, this year’s president of the Student Government Association Executive Council and student representative on the UT Health Science Center Advisory Board, is determined to be the voice of all students at the university. Bohm is also the president of the Graduate Student Executive Council.
“I take it very seriously that my position is not just to be the voice of the graduate students, but the voice of all our students across all of our campuses, which is an incredible responsibility and privilege,” Bohm said. “I took a trip to Knoxville a few months ago and was able to ask some of the students there, ‘how can we best help and serve you?’ My personal priorities are to be the best representative of our diverse student population that I can be, learn as much as I can, and be as responsive as possible to student needs.”
Bohm is studying in the Biomedical Sciences PhD program in the College of Graduate Health Sciences. She grew up in Michigan and studied at Northern Michigan University. She started her undergraduate years in pre-med, then she received a freshman fellowship that inspired her to pursue research.
“Northern offered a freshman fellowship where I could get into a lab and get experience doing research. I joined a microbiology lab with Dr. Josh Sharp there, who studies ways to rapidly identify common pathogens, and I loved it,” she said. “By Thanksgiving, I said ‘Mom, Dad, I’m still going to be a doctor, but I’m not going into the MD route – I want to do a PhD.”
In 2019, she graduated from Northern Michigan University with her bachelor’s in Biochemistry. After graduating, she worked as a laboratory technician at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor for two years.
“That’s where I started working on the gastrointestinal system, which combined with my undergrad work in microbiology, led me to asking a lot of questions about the gut microbiome and how that can impact health and disease,” she said.
Her experience attending a virtual conference and hearing a talk from Joe Pierre, PhD, a former UT Health Science Center faculty member, sparked her interest in learning more about the programs and research. She discovered how much they aligned with her own interests.
In 2021, she applied to many schools including UT Health Science Center and visited the campus to meet with David R. Nelson, PhD, professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Biochemistry, and Liza Makowski, PhD, professor in the College of Medicine’s Division of Hematology-Oncology, with joint appointments in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Biochemistry, and the College of Pharmacy’s Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Dr. Makowski is also an associate director for Education and Development in the Center for Cancer Research at UT Health Science Center.
Visiting the university and meeting Dr. Makowski and Dr. Nelson confirmed for Bohm that UT Health Science Center was the right fit.
“It was honestly the best of both worlds, because Dr. Makowski studies the immune system and the gut microbiome. And her lab works closely with Dr. Pierre, whom I was already interested in, and I really appreciated her perspective as a woman in science,” Bohm said.
Now, Bohm is an award-winning senior graduate student in Dr. Makowski’s lab. She is conducting research for her project on ways to manipulate the gut microbiome to improve response to immunotherapy for breast cancer patients. “Dr. Makowski is a great mentor, she’s always there when I have a concern or exciting data to share, and she’s given me so much room to explore different avenues with my project,” she said.
“It’s been absolutely amazing the entire time, and I recognize I’m so lucky as a PhD student to be able to say that because so many graduate students may encounter struggles during this stage,” she said. “I’m very lucky that our findings are currently very encouraging, and the first paper will be going out soon. It’s been so great to be in an environment where there are so many people relevant to what I am working on that I can connect with, both in UT Health Science Center and at neighboring institutions.”
Bohm said her passion for leadership began at a young age.
“I just love being able to help make things better for others.”
Margaret Bohm
Several recognitions and awards Bohm has earned includes, 2024 Outstanding Student in the Biomedical Sciences Program, Microbiology, Immunology, and Biochemistry Track; 2024 Imhotep Society Inductee; 2022 Alma and Hal Reagan Endowment Fellow; recipient of four travel awards to attend conferences in immunology, the microbiome, and cancer treatment; has authorship on six published papers, and lead author of two published papers; and completed 12 poster and oral presentations at conferences.
The goals that Bohm and her fellow student leaders are interested in includes community outreach and having more student interactions across the colleges.
“In my college and within the university in general, we’re focusing on how to bring the community together,” she said. “We’re also very interested in having more cross-college interactions, because right now it feels like we’re pretty siloed.”
Donald Thomason, PhD, dean of the College of Graduate Health Sciences, said Bohm’s enthusiasm as GSEC President has rallied the GSEC and the student body toward accomplishing a number of activities with efficiency.
“As an accomplished student and leader, her representation of the entire UT Health Science Center student body on the UTHSC Advisory Board ensures that the needs and concerns of our students are heard,” Dr. Thomason said.
After she earns her PhD, she plans to begin a postdoctoral fellowship. In the future, Bohm’s goal is to become a professor and mentor the next generation of scientists.