You could say Mericien Venzon has a foot in both worlds – and one foot is wearing an ice skate. She’s a successful figure skater, winning the 2009 Philippine championship and competing in the 2011 world championships. But she’s no stranger to the world of science, either: as a UCLA student, she pursued a major in biology and a minor in evolutionary medicine. An undergraduate researcher in Prof. Michael Alfaro’s lab, Venzon was designated a Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Scholar. Still, she managed to become a founding member of UCLA’s first competitive figure skating team – and a clinical research assistant on the elite Student Stroke Team working with UCLA emergency medicine.