Brendan Hinckley, MS, had just finished presenting his final poster when he received the email that he’d won the Graduate School’s Outstanding Master’s Student Award.
“There was a lot of not only relief for being completed with my poster, but then excitement for being recognized for what I've done as well,” Hinckley, who received his Master of Science in Modern Human Anatomy (MHA) this week, said. He happened to be standing next to his mentor, Dr. Ernesto Salcedo, and excitedly showed him the news immediately.
Little did he know, Dr. Salcedo and Dr. Traci Lyons had put together a nomination packet for him earlier this semester documenting his academic successes and campus involvement. In it they demonstrated just how productive Hinckley was in his two years as a master’s student.
Hinckley took advantage of every opportunity he could in his time at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, and that was by design.
“I'm moving on to medical school after this, and so having the opportunity to do a program on a medical campus and participate in research projects that are on a medical campus was something that not many places offer,” Hinckley said. “It was the opportunities that were on the campus that brought me here.”
He liked that the MHA program mixed anatomy with technology and that it had proximity to the hospital and clinical research. The connection between learning and clinical impact is what keeps Hinckley motivated.
“With my capstone, it's directly impacting postpartum breast cancer patients. It's pretty rewarding to be a part of something that actually contributes to somebody's life, as opposed to just a grade,” Hinckley said.
Hinckley’s capstone project and its importance was summed up by his nominators:
“Brendan created an innovative semi-automated method to process whole slide images of breast cancer tumor biopsies. He was able to design the methods and quantify the patient cohort in less than 3 months. The data he captured in that short amount of time replicated Dr. Lyons’s previously published data that took over 3 years to generate.”
In addition to this work, Hinckley spent time working with the Neurology Department over the summer and was included on two separate publications.
His campus involvement extended past the lab. He was Co-Class President, served as a tutor and cadaveric dissector, and served as a member of CU Anschutz Donor Memorial Committee.
Through it all, Hinckley said his favorite memories from his time in the program are related to the posters he and his classmates created to showcase their capstones. He liked attending the poster classes and seeing his classmates’ projects growing, adapting, and coming together.
“I saw their growing passion when they finally did get good results. It was cool to see that moment,” Hinckley said. “At the poster session, it was all completed, but we saw that moment of when it was completed before.”
Now that he has another degree under his belt, Hinckley is putting the finishing touches on personal statements for MD/PhD applications. He’s also accepted a position to continue working in Dr. Lyons' lab where he will continue working with breast cancer image analysis.
