Ramon (Andy) Lujan, PhD student, is the first DUSON PhD student to have been accepted into the prestigious NIH Graduate Partnership Program (NIH-GPP). This program brings PhD students, who have completed their program coursework at their home university, into the NIH Intramural Research Program to conduct their dissertation research. Lujan will be leaving for the program in June. 

Lujan, with the guidance of his mentor Julia Walker, professor, established a collaborate relationship with Heather Hickman of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He then applied for the NIH-GPP program and was accepted to spend the next two years of his PhD training in Hickman’s lab. This all required that Lujan take several undergraduate basic science courses in order to be well prepared to conduct his research in Hickman’s lab. 

 Lujan is recipient of Duke University's Dean's Graduate Fellowship, granting him the ability to participate in the Society of Duke Fellowship, granting him the ability to participate in the Society of Duke Fellows. Born to a family of second generation Mexican American immigrants, he was raised in the borderland region of El Paso, Texas. He attended the School of Nursing at the University of Texas at El Paso. During his time there, he received mentorship in developing NIH grant proposals and training in bio behavioral research design. Meanwhile his mentor, Hector Olvera, helped him to identify his interests in cellular processes. Soon after earning his Bachelor of Science of Nursing in 2018, he began working as a labor and delivery nurse at a local hospital. His current research interests are in physiology and immunology, and his life dream is to engage in vaccine research and production as a nursing scientist.