Hunter Congratulates Salk Award Winner Larisa Shagabayeva ‘16

Larisa Shagabayeva, now enrolled at Harvard Medical School, has won CUNY’s prestigious 2017 Salk Award. The cash prize, which will help fund her medical studies, is awarded annually to recent CUNY graduates demonstrating outstanding scholarship in medicine and the biomedical sciences.

Shagabayeva graduated from Hunter with a major in chemistry and a minor in history. As an undergraduate, she worked in Professor Nancy Greenbaum’s biochemistry laboratory and held leadership roles in the Pre-Health Organization and Pre-Health Student Advisory Council. She says her interest in medicine was originally inspired by her mother, a licensed nurse who passed her evaluation exams after emigrating from Russia.

Shagabayeva looks forward to a career in both treatment and research.