Evan O’Loughlin
He/Him
I am gay and I am a PhD student in cell and developmental biology.//
I’m a PhD candidate at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital. My interests are in studying the interface between cell biology, development, and tumorigenesis, with a focus on the system of bile ducts that drain the mammalian liver. I love the inherent beauty of the process of constructing a complex organ like the liver and being able to examine these phenomena under a microscope. I also hope that this work will have a positive impact on patients suffering from devastating diseases like biliary cancer. Outside of lab, I love spending time in nature (especially hiking and birdwatching) and reading about diverse things that happen to catch my interest. I am very fortunate that my friends and family have been nothing but supportive of my being gay. But I have definitely experienced a general lack of other queer people in my field, not to mention many uncomfortable conversations where people make assumptions about me because I may not seem “obviously gay” to them and it can feel difficult or awkward to correct them! I hope that being visible on here can help in some small way to give other scientists and students interested in science the confidence to be their authentic selves.