The University of Arizona Alumnus / Summer 2008
SCHOLAR BLENDS CHINESE ROOTS,
AMERICAN OPPORTUNITIES
by Donna Kreutz
From an early age, Adeel Yang has leapt from culture to culture with ease.
He was born in Texas, moved from Texas to Taiwan at age 3, and returned to the U.S. as a young teen to go to high school in southern California. His parents are Chinese — his father is a Muslim and his mother practiced Buddhism — so his first language was Mandarin. And when he started high school in the U.S., he spoke no English.
Now, in 2008, this self-confessed overachiever has graduated from The University of Arizona with a two degrees — a bachelor of science in molecular and cellular biology and a bachelor of arts in economics — a minor in Arabic, and a flawless 4.0 grade-point average. A Flinn and Galileo Circle Scholar, Yang also received the Center for Middle Eastern Studies Scholarship for summer study in Cairo. At graduation he was named one of the two Merrill P. Freeman medalists in the Class of 2008.
"I was given this great opportunity, so I want to do something bigger than myself, to be able to help other people," says Yang, who plans to put his many talents to work as an international physician. "I could see spending half a year in the Middle East or China, but I want to make Tucson my home base." He also is considering Doctors without Borders.
At the UA, Yang took full advantage of undergraduate research opportunities. He dissected fruit-fly brains to learn more about mental retardation in humans. In economics, he analyzed health-insurance data to learn more about racial inequities. In medicine, he completed an introductory medical internship while rotating through three Tucson hospitals and volunteered at a health clinic in Mexico. He also organized campus service projects. To quiet his mind and help balance his life, he says, he runs marathons and plays ball sports.
"I want to do everything," Yang declares. And in the future, even though working as a physician is time consuming, he'd also like to conduct basic science research and study healthcare economics.
"I want to care for patients, interact with people, and make a difference," he says. "Basic research is so important. You can fix disease with basic research. There will be amazing breakthroughs."
He's seen the potential for breakthroughs in research firsthand, while studying with Daniela Zarnescu, UA assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology. With Zarnescu, Yang learned about the molecular mechanisms behind Fragile X syndrome — the most common form of inherited mental retardation. He also researched the role protein plays in neural development by dissecting fruit-fly brains the size of a grain of salt.
"You do this under a microscope with little tiny tweezers," he says. "By marking the proteins with fluorescence, you see all these colors. I can see things moving around in the neurons. That to me is amazing. I could do that the rest of my life because you're looking at very fundamental elements of science."
When Yang started his research for his honors thesis in economics, he says, he didn't even know that his advisor, Ronald Oaxaca, McLelland professor of economics, was renowned for an economic model, the eponymous Oaxaca Decomposition.
"It's famous," Yang marvels. "Everybody that does econometric analysis uses his method. It's so motivating."
His second degree, in economics, specifically health-care economics, will play an important role in his future work. "Economics gives you a really worldly view of things," he says. "It's very different from science. It's still the logic and thinking of science and a lot of math, but it's political, historical. You have to know a lot of other subjects to apply economics." Yang attributes his success to hard work and discipline.
Growing up in Taiwan, "I was taught to focus on school," Yang says. This meant classes all day from 7 a.m. to 3 or 4 p.m., tutoring sessions after school, and evenings spent doing homework.
"If I want to be successful with my life, I have to study. That's the attitude I've had ever since I was around 4 years old," he says.
His family life was culturally rich and unusually diverse. "I grew up in a very interesting environment," he says.
With his mother's family, he celebrated Chinese New Year, a festival marked by rich Chinese traditions. "My mom's side of the family had a very happy, Buddhist kind of attitude toward everything," he says.
And for the Islamic observance of Ramadan, he enjoyed the company of his father's side of the family. "My name is actually Arabic — my dad picked the spelling," he says.
Yang's growing-up years in Taiwan were good. He remembers wonderful doctors and great teachers. "I feel very lucky. I was able to explore, go places I wanted to go, and achieve things I wanted to achieve."
A U.S. citizen by birth, Yang returned to the U.S. for high school. He counts that opportunity as a blessing. "A lot of my classmates had a very rigid, narrow path to choose from. They didn't have the option to say, 'I want to go to the States and study,'" he says.
But first he had to learn English.
"It took a while to be brave enough to talk with people. I had a really thick accent."
Still, he made the transition quickly, and in his sophomore year he enrolled in the International Baccalaureate Program with connections to the UA, at Chandler High School outside Phoenix.
He's always maintained his international outlook. He traveled to North Africa after graduating from high school and studied Arabic as an undergrad. UA scholarships helped him explore Eastern Europe and study in the Middle East. This summer, he plans to return to China to see the Olympics.
Observing cultural differences firsthand — both abroad and during his internship in Tucson hospitals — underscored the importance of becoming "culturally competent" in his future career, he says. As an international physician, he will need to have basic cultural sensitivity and to overcome language barriers, in addition to learning to correctly diagnose and treat patients.
Yang has followed a well-thought-out path. His minor in Arabic, just for instance, will undoubtedly bolster his credentials as an international physician.
"The UA department [of Near Eastern Studies] is so great I just had to take advantage of it," he says.
Yang maintained a straight-A average in college without losing much sleep. "I averaged maybe one all-nighter per semester. I'm trained to study."
Yang hopes to attend the UA College of Medicine in the fall of 2009. In the meantime, he plans to travel, stay involved with research at the UA, learn as much as possible from Professor Oaxaca, and make Tucson his home. "This is some place I feel I belong. I've never had that feeling before."
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