Student Spotlight: Jourdan Gruber

Jourdan Gruber is a Molecular Biology major who is graduating in December 2022. She’s from Charleston, SC and her hobbies include playing soccer, running and reading.

While in college Gruber has had plenty of accomplishments. She is a dual sport athlete, her sports being soccer and cross country. During her first three years at USC Aiken (2019-2021), she played Forward and in her senior year, she joined cross country.

Her college accomplishments don’t only stop at athletics, but also academics.

Recently, she has been working on research that may be published professionally. Her findings from this research have created a new genotyping protocol for a zebrafish line that didn’t have one previously.

This research was conducted for the senior capstone project—analyzing the effects of tbx5a on cardiac patterning on zebrafish— this includes looking at heart phenotype and connecting it to their genotype.

Regarding plans after graduation, she will have an internship that she will be completing before applying to medical school. Her current #1 choice is MUSC located in Charleston, SC but she’s applying to eight different schools.

Her dream career is to be either an allergist or an immunologist. After completing medical school, there will be a two-year residency in pediatrics and another two years in allergy and immunology.