Julianna Cruz arrived at Emory College of Arts and Sciences as a first-generation, Mexican American student, hoping her pre-med major would inspire her three younger sisters.
She graduates with honors, earning a dual degree in anthropology and human biology and Spanish/Portuguese. She added research to her physician career aspirations once she realized that her family and background were inspiring her to understand how underrepresented communities access medical care.
“Emory allowed me to deviate from the checklist of being pre-med and discover what I am passionate about,” says Cruz, who plans to take a gap year with family before pursuing an MD/PhD. “Leading with my heart, focusing on giving back to a community I care about so much, drove my ambition.”
A QuestBridge Scholar from Texas, she initially focused on service opportunities at Emory, not research. Cruz has worked as a mentor with FirstSTEM, connecting students with resources and support, since her first year on campus. She has volunteered as a medical interpreter and medical assistant in Atlanta-area community health clinics, witnessing firsthand how social and cultural factors affect health care.
Her first research experience came the summer after her sophomore year, in the competitive Undergraduate Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
Despite the relatively tight nine-week timeframe, Cruz completed master’s-level epidemiology coursework and ran a study that revealed a link between large-artery stiffness and abnormal heart rhythm in patients with chronic kidney disease.
Cruz presented the findings, which had immediate clinical implications, to doctors from around the world at the World Congress of Nephrology in Argentina. Her research also earned her designation as a 2024 Goldwater Scholar.
“We need brilliant people like Julianna doing thoughtful research into kidney disease, where there is so much room for her to make a difference for so many,” says Jordana Cohen, the nephrologist and associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Penn who supervised Cruz’s work. “The best day will be when I can call her a colleague, standing next to me.”
Bridging science and the humanities
Cruz’s confidence in connecting health sciences with the humanities grew throughout her years at Emory, as research opportunities combined with classes such as a first-year seminar on social justice and memoir with Christine Ristaino, director of the Emory College Language Center and professor of practice in Italian.
Cruz juggled her study of Portuguese with research in chronic kidney disease, studying the effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction meditation on patients in physician Jeanie Park’s human integrative physiology lab at the Emory University School of Medicine. While her work with Park began in an unexpected way, it appealed to Cruz’s growing interest in studying medicine through people’s behavior and culture to pursue non-medical interventions.
Cruz began volunteering with Slow Food Emory, helping with weekly collection and preparation of surplus food from farmers’ markets for cancer patients at the Atlanta Hope Lodge.
There she met Sabrina Li, the senior student who founded Emory’s Slow Food chapter. Li was impressed with how proactive Cruz was, stepping forward to help oversee surplus recovery from Emory dining halls to donate to anyone in need on campus.
Li, who was already working as an undergraduate researcher in Park’s lab, encouraged Cruz to apply to work there as well. Cruz and Li also conducted clinical and data research together as fellows in Emory’s Summer Undergraduate Program in Renal Research.
“It’s little things, like staying behind [at Slow Food events] to help clean up, that show how genuine Julianna is,” says Li, a biology major headed to Stanford University School of Medicine in the fall. “I respect so much that everything she does, she does because she cares.”
Drawing inspiration from personal connections
Cruz has continued to pursue ways her research could improve the quality of life for those she cares about most.
She served as Ristaino’s teaching assistant while conducting independent research into underrepresentation in biomedical research. Cruz presented her findings from that research last fall at her second international conference, this time in Ireland as an Idaho Museum of International Diaspora Global Leadership Fellow.
“The room Julianna presented in was packed with professionals who had been looking into this topic for decades,” Ristaino says. “Many commented that Julianna showed research skills on par with someone who had been researching for years. They were all blown away.”
Shortly after the Ireland conference, Cruz traveled to Argentina, India and South Africa with the School for International Training, a program through Emory’s education abroad offerings. There, she completed a global public health project comparing the socio-cultural context of countries’ public health systems and its role in how communities navigate care.
At the same time, Cruz was expanding her independent research into her honors thesis. Applying anthropology frameworks, she examined federal data that shows Hispanic Americans tend to have health outcomes that are comparable to, or better than, their U.S. non-Hispanic white counterparts. Cruz found that the failure to include data from undocumented and uninsured Latinos results in better-than-expected outcomes, skewing the validity of those kidney-disease research studies.
Cruz plans to spend the next several months with family while working with mentors to get her various research efforts published.
But first, she will host her family for Commencement. Although it’s Cruz’s graduation, and her mother’s first time on campus, she expects the focus will be on her siblings.
“I’m strongly encouraging them to feel at home at Emory, the way I have,” says Cruz. “I’ve even told my brother to apply here if he decides to get a PhD. I feel like I thrived here because the liberal arts allowed me to study the social and human aspects of medicine, along with the science. It’s humbling, really, how much that helped me grow.”