I am a physician-scientist trained in diverse disciplines including clinical gastroenterology, structural biology and stem cell biology. This background provides me with a unique perspective and opportunity to study intestinal stem cell (ISC) biology at the molecular, cellular and tissue levels. My love of science grew from an appreciation of studying undergraduate chemistry and physical sciences. During my graduate school education, this evolved into a desire to understand how 3D structure or molecular form enables biological function in order to confer specificity in protein-protein or protein-nucleic acid interactions. Specifically, I have experimentally examined these interactions in signal transduction, including ligand/receptor interactions, using structural biology and biophysical methods. My medical training armed me with a love for clinical gastroenterology and guided me toward the field of regenerative medicine to feed my personal desire to serve the patients I see in my clinic. As a postdoctoral fellow, I pursued further scientific training in ISC biology and learned to use rigorous mouse genetics, in vivo models, ex vivo 3D organoid culture models, and single-cell genomics to examine stem cell fate decisions.