Varun Devraj is originally from St. Louis, Missouri, where he was involved in Speech & Debate and also performed as an Indian classical singer. He is a graduate of the Princeton University class of 2023, where he majored in Molecular Biology and received high honors along with a minor in Global Health. Additionally, he was elected to Princeton’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in the fall of 2022, and he is also a two time recipient of Princeton’s Shapiro Prize, an award bestowed on underclassmen for exceptional academic achievement. At Princeton, Varun was very involved in the palliative care advocacy space after completing a summer internship with a palliative care non-profit in New Delhi, India. He founded Princeton for Palliative Care, a student organization advocating for palliative care awareness through fundraisers, guest speaker events, and student opportunities. Along with this grassroots advocacy, Varun has also published a commentary piece on the current state of palliative care in India and future recommendations to bring greater palliative care awareness to the country. He also has extensive experience in lab research and science communication due to his Molecular Biology major, through which he completed a capstone senior thesis on the impact of chronic stress on the brain mitochondria of mice. Finally, as a member of the Princeton Public Health Review and Princeton Undergraduate Research Journal, Varun has developed the nuanced ability to communicate often complex scientific and medical information to a wider audience. After his undergraduate studies, Varun enrolled at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) where he is currently an M1. During his first year at ISMMS, Varun has already been extensively involved in research related to oncology and pediatrics, having had a case report abstract published in the pre-eminent pediatric oncology journal, Pediatric Blood & Cancer. Besides this publication, he is currently involved in a study investigating the role of early introduction of food allergens to 9-month-old infants and another study working to update the febrile neutropenia guidelines for the Departments of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. Varun was chosen for the highly selective Medical Student Training in Aging Research (MSTAR) program for the summer of 2024, where he will be working to examine changes in geriatric patients’ quality of life measures after palliative radiation therapy.
