Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Majors: Biology and Community Health
Sandy is a senior from Boston, Massachusetts studying Biology and Community Health. Growing up, she often heard her parents recount the conditions they endured after the Vietnam War: living in one-story farmhouses, sharing cramped spaces and scarce rations with siblings and neighbors. Beginning freshman year, she then learned through community health classes that these conditions are reflections of broader systemic inequities that persist today. Through volunteering and research at food pantries, local clinics, and rural communities abroad, Sandy has seen firsthand how social determinants such as employment, family support, and language barriers shape health outcomes. These experiences have grounded her commitment to addressing health disparities. Sandy now strives to become a physician who not only provides clinical care but also advocates for more equitable systems that allow all patients to achieve and maintain better health.
Locally, Sandy volunteered at the South End Community Health Center on a weekly basis for two years, where she scheduled appointments and guided Black and Hispanic patients in using home blood pressure monitors. She also worked as a medical scribe in the Emergency Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she documented patient histories and gained deeper insight into how factors like homelessness can profoundly undermine a person’s health. More recently, Sandy started volunteering with The Welcome Project to teach English to non-native speakers. She is also working as a Program Coordinator for Support to Succeed—a non-profit that provides career coaching for low-income, unemployed adults entering the financial industry—with the goal of increasing job attainment among people of color.
Aside from community service, Sandy also has extensive clinical research experience. During freshman year, she worked over 600 hours as a research coordinator at Boston Children’s Hospital for a study on how parent-child interactions shape early executive function. She prepared EEG caps, calculated Bayley scores, and managed large datasets; this role sparked my interest in clinical research and helped me develop skills in data management. In summer of 2024, through a Laidlaw scholarship at Tufts, Sandy collaborated with the Friedman School of Nutrition and conducted a literature review on how maternal dietary knowledge, attitude, and practice influences child growth outcomes in Egypt, Uganda, Ghana, and Madagascar. This past summer, she analyzed data from a retrospective study at the University of Malaysia Medical Center in Kuala Lumpur to determine how inappropriate dosing of non-vitamin K oral anticoagulants (NOACs) can affect frail older patients with atrial fibrillation. The results highlighted the urgent need for physician training and dosage oversight. Together with my PI, Sandy co-authored a 15-page manuscript that is now being processed for publication.
On-campus, Sandy takes pride in being a student mentor. During her first two years at Tufts, she tutored with the Tufts Literacy Corps and volunteered at a local Bright Horizons daycare. She then served as a resident assistant (RA) for three years—mediating roommate conflicts, connecting residents with confidential campus resources, and supporting students through academic and personal challenges. Having graduated from the Laidlaw Research Program, Sandy now serves as a Laidlaw Program Specialist, where I’ve offered application assistance and helped develop a leadership training curriculum for the new cohort.
In her spare time, Sandy balances her academic responsibilities and community service with hosting picnics with friends, biking with her family, reading, and playing the piano.
Whether locally or globally, Sandy will continue to invest in research, service, and mentorship to advance health equity and empower others to do the same. After graduation, she hopes to continue working with nonprofits and engaging in global health research to uplift low-income and underrepresented communities.
Sandy Nguyen, A26