Viera Masih

My life in the United States began in the Fall of 1980. I was granted a Research Fellowship at Saint Louis University to further my studies in the graduate school of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. That opportunity came to me unexpectedly and was based upon my past academic achievement, namely, a Masters in Nuclear Physics and three years of research experience in the Department of Earthquake Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology. A few months before my arrival in the United States my research supervisor implanted the idea of applying abroad to further pursue my Ph.D. It felt like a dream, though it became real. I subsequently graduated with a second Masters Degree focusing on Research in Seismology (a branch of Geophysics) at Saint Louis University. Following this, I became a teacher in a parochial college preparatory, and then enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania to become a Nuclear Medicine Technologist, an area of study I had never envisioned. At this point in my life spanning a broad spectrum of experiences, I wrote. I wrote a reflection of my life which is not altogether linear but an experience of how my present is shaped by my past. My future as I have discerned it has an indelible connection to my present.

Currently, I am working at Johns Hopkins Medical Institution and living in Washington Metropolitan area with my husband Hemchand and our loving dog Atlas.