Samantha Shafer is from Muskogee, Oklahoma and graduated early because that's the kind of student she is. Sam is the former president of the Microbiology Club at OSU and was a 2018-2019 Wentz Scholar. She then completed a post-bacc program at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. Among her other research, she examined genetic variations that make some people more susceptible than others to COVID-19!

Sam will enroll in fall 2021 in the NIH OxCam MD/PhD program at Emory University and at the University of Cambridge.