Ogan K.
Kumova
PhD

I’ve been a scientist at heart since I was six — the year I got my first microscope and a subscription to Discovery Kids, which I read cover to cover and then started all over again. I grew up in Turkey as the kid who always asked “why?” No one ever managed to talk me out of it.

My family moved to the United States at the end of middle school, and I finished high school in New Jersey, fitting in every science class the schedule would allow. Around the same time, I began volunteering at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. That is where I learned something about myself that took me years to fully act on: I love explaining science as much as I love doing it. Watching the moment a concept clicks for someone — regardless of their age, background, or familiarity with the science — is its own kind of result.

After high school, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in research, so I attended the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, where I earned dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Biochemistry and Bioinformatics. At the same time, I continued working at the Franklin Institute in roles that ranged from developing workshop curricula and presenting live science shows on the museum floor to directing its overnight camp program. Each role taught me how to meet people where they are and make complicated ideas engaging, understandable, and relevant. What began as a high school volunteer position ultimately grew into a relationship with the Franklin Institute that lasted more than twenty years.

Even before beginning my research career, I was drawn to teaching. I taught at Philadelphia University while continuing to develop science curricula, experiences that reinforced my belief that discovering new knowledge and helping others understand it are equally rewarding.

My research career began at Drexel University College of Medicine, where I worked as a laboratory technician studying Legionella pneumophila — biofilm regulation, OmpA-like proteins, and the molecular machinery the pathogen uses to survive inside human cells. During that time, I realized that I needed to continue my formal education, so I pursued a Master of Science in Clinical Infectious Diseases while continuing my laboratory work.

From there, I met neonatologist Alison J. Carey, MD, and joined her newly established neonatal immunology laboratory as its lab manager. As we worked together, we realized that I had the potential to take on a larger and more independent scientific role. I entered graduate school as her first doctoral student, and a new question took hold of me: Why are newborns so immunologically vulnerable?

That question became the focus of my doctoral research. I studied the developmental differences in antiviral immunity that make newborns particularly susceptible to severe respiratory infections, approaching the problem from multiple angles — from cellular and molecular mechanisms to whole-animal models and translational implications. I earned a competitive fellowship that funded my graduate training, was selected for the 2016 NIH Clinical and Translational Research cohort, and received the Amedeo Bondi Award for Excellence in Research and the Dean’s Excellence Award for Collaborative Research.

Graduate school also strengthened something that has shaped every stage of my career: when I see a need, I step forward and act. I became a strong advocate for graduate students, serving as President of the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Student Association, representing students on the Drexel University Graduate Council, and serving on the College of Medicine’s Biomedical Sciences Executive Committee. I brought student concerns directly into the rooms where decisions were made and worked to ensure that graduate student perspectives informed conversations about curriculum, policy, well-being, and the overall training experience.

I took the same approach to leadership in the laboratory, where I trained and mentored master’s students, neonatology fellows, and junior researchers. I did not simply teach techniques; I helped people learn how to think through scientific questions, troubleshoot problems, communicate their work, and become more confident, independent researchers. For me, leadership has never been about holding a title. It is about recognizing what needs to be done, bringing people together, and taking responsibility for moving the work forward.

I chose my postdoctoral fellowship deliberately. I wanted hands-on translational research and a real understanding of how regulators evaluate scientific evidence, and the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review offered both. There, as part of an NIH-funded cooperative research center, I developed liposome- and outer membrane vesicle-based vaccine candidates against Neisseria gonorrhoeae. My work extended across the preclinical development process, including antigen selection, protein expression and isolation, vaccine formulation, immunization studies, and the evaluation of systemic and mucosal immune responses.

Just as importantly, I gained firsthand insight into how preclinical evidence is judged — through rigorous study design, GLP standards, regulatory documentation, and the frameworks used to assess vaccine safety and immunogenicity. It changes the way you design an experiment when you understand who will evaluate the data next, what questions they will ask, and what evidence they need to make a decision.

That path eventually led me to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, where I work on high-stakes evidence reviews commissioned by federal agencies including the CDC, VA, DoD, and FDA. The work brings together experts from many different fields: epidemiology, immunology, clinical medicine, mechanistic biology, public health, statistics, and policy. Each discipline has its own language, standards of evidence, and way of approaching a question.

My role is often to serve as the bridge among experts from these different disciplines. I translate across fields — not by simplifying away the complexity, but by helping people understand how evidence from one area connects to the questions being asked in another. I help bring mechanistic science into conversation with population-level data, clinical experience into conversation with epidemiology, and scientific findings into a form that can inform policy.

That work requires listening closely, recognizing when experts are talking past one another, and asking the questions that move the discussion forward. It also requires helping people with different types of expertise build a shared understanding of what the evidence shows, where it remains uncertain, and what conclusions it can reasonably support.

It is work that draws on every part of my background: the researcher who wants to understand how something works, the educator who has spent decades teaching science in museums, classrooms, and laboratories, and the leader who is willing to step in, connect people, and turn a complicated problem into a path forward.

Taken together, my career has given me an unusually broad view of how biomedical science moves from discovery to public impact — from basic laboratory research and translational development, through regulatory science at the FDA, to evidence synthesis and national health policy. Along the way, I have worked as a researcher, educator, mentor, and scientific leader, and each role has reinforced the same lesson: the strongest scientific decisions rarely come from one type of evidence or one area of expertise. They come from bringing the right people and perspectives together, asking the right questions, and building meaningful connections among them.

The curiosity that started with a childhood microscope is still the engine. The questions have simply gotten bigger — and so has my appreciation that good science is ultimately about improving people’s lives. I still ask “why?” just as often. The difference now is that the answers can help shape research, policy, and the decisions that affect millions of people.