Mona Mashayekhi, MD, PhD

Mona was born in Tehran, Iran, where she lived with her family until the age of 9 years old. She immigrated to the US, where she was fascinated by all the new experiences, such as meeting a blonde person for the first time, and eating hot dogs and cereal! She went to high school in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and then moved to Chicago to attend the U of C. There, she minored in law and psychology, and majored in biology. She moved to St Louis, Missouri, to complete the MD/PhD program at WashU, where she studied the role of dendritic cells in the mouse immune response to Toxoplasma gondii. Mona and her family were excited to move to Nashville and complete residency at Vanderbilt.