November 01, 2022

Meet Samantha Coleman 

Research Assistant 

Where are you from? 

 I was born and raised in Belize (Central America). I came to America when I was 18 years old on a scholarship to study at Saint Louis University.

What brought you to Washington University Orthopedics? 

My senior project at SLU was based on the histology work I did at the pathology lab on the medical campus and I had come to the decision that histology would be my career path. The stars aligned and there was a job opening at the MRC Histology Core and I got the job.

What aspect of your work do you find most interesting or rewarding? 

I work in the Histology Core at the Musculoskeletal Research Center. Dr. Deborah Veis is the director of the Histology Core and Matthew Silva, PhD, is the Musculoskeletal Research Core director. I am a histology tech so we primarily work on sectioning and staining of tissue samples for analysis. Our core primarily works on bone and muscle tissue. The most interesting aspect to me is seeing how the morphology of the tissues change based on whatever experiments are being conducted. Some of them are drastic and I find that so fascinating.

What is your favorite thing to do outside of work?

Lately, I’ve been playing through the entire catalogue of my favorite video game franchise and I love seeing how the mechanics of the games have evolved over the last 30+ years.

What's the best advice you ever received? 

My high school physics professor always told us that no matter what you do in life or where you end up; to always be humble. That is something that I’ve always held close to heart.

If you weren’t in health care, what would you like to be doing? 

I’ve always had a love for museums and I still go the local ones whenever I have time. I would have probably been a museum archivist.

Learn about our Washington University Orthopaedic research and why patients choose WashU Orthopedics.

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