Alumni Connections: Ben Pham ’23 on Crohn’s disease research and life after Carleton

In our last edition of Alumni Connections, Aiden Chang ’23 discussed how he navigated life post-Carleton with the help of Carleton alumni. 

One particular Carleton connection Chang made was with Ben Pham ’23, his former roommate who was also doing research in California. Pham had an unexpected journey after he graduated from Carleton as well, and wanted to share what he learned with current Carls.

While Pham was still at Carleton, he was a biology major with pre-med intentions who was struggling to find research opportunities. Pre-med internships, research opportunities, and volunteer positions are highly sought-after, and therefore scarce. During Pham’s junior year, however, he met Dr. Jeong Hyun ’01, a pediatric surgeon, who offered help to Pham in finding research opportunities. 

“I didn’t think much of it at the time,” Pham said. “Fast forward to the end of my senior year, I reached out to him in an e-mail about starting to look at research opportunities. It just so happened that [his] post-baccelaurete student was actually leaving in the summer, and [he] needed somebody to fill that position.”

Once Pham was accepted into the program, the turnaround was very quick. Graduating in June 2023, Pham moved down to California the month after to do research with Dr. Hyun at Stanford, where he’s still working. 

Pham credits the signature work ethic of Carleton students for his drive to keep up with research and staying caught up with the rest of his team. He has also absorbed a distinct way of learning from Carleton that’s been helpful.

“The way that Carleton structures its classes is helpful in research,” Pham said. “It teaches you to be very curious. There’s less emphasis on memorization and a stronger emphasis on application and understanding. It allows you to be able to synthesize new information instead of just regurgitating.”

Dr. Hyun also proved to be incredibly valuable as a mentor for Pham. Hyun, who graduated with a degree in political science from Carleton, spent a couple years working elsewhere before deciding to pursue medicine.

“That kind of non-linear path was really helpful [to see],” Pham said. “He’s had a lot more life experiences — that’s shaped how I see life and post-graduation opportunities. He’s a great example of working hard and [knowing] things will work out going forward. When you don’t know what’s going to happen next, and you see somebody that’s gone through it already and is in a field that you want to be in, it’s a reassuring feeling during times of uncertainty.”

Pham also found that Hyun being a Carleton alum allowed them to grow closer as people.

“People who go to Carleton have similar overarching themes,” Pham said. “We’re very inquisitive, we’re typically very social. That’s definitely reflected in his personality, so it’s easier to form a personal  relationship. We’re able to talk about [Carleton] traditions that only [alumni] would know about.”

Pham holds Carleton in a special place in his heart — not just because he enjoyed his time on campus and continues to find a lot of value in the alumni network, but also because he is now an alum who can pass on those same positive experiences to the next generation of Carls (like his brother, who also attended Carleton, and his sister, who is now applying).

“I feel this need as an alum to help future students because of how much this place has given to me,” Pham said. “I think that’s a big reason why we have a strong alumni network. There’s a level of trust in the school, in that most of the students are very hard working and want to make an impact. That kind of broader worldview and sense of personal responsibility is something that alumni can trust and rely on if they want to do important work with undergraduate students.”

At Stanford, Pham worked with Hyun’s research team to study some of the underlying mechanisms behind Crohn’s disease. They found that a certain type of abnormal fatty tissue, known as “creeping fat,” in the intestines triggers intense scarring that debilitates the intestines’ ability to function. Further information is available on the Stanford website, if you’re interested in learning more!

Pham joined the research team for the final two years of its five-year-long study, and had a lot of catching up to do.

“It was a lot of learning,” Pham said. “There’s a pretty steep learning curve, because a lot of the work we do in this lab involves bioinformatics, which is biology research integrated with computer science and statistics. Without a heavy research and coding background, I spent quite a bit of time learning how to write in different programming languages and perform wet lab techniques such as processing tissue samples. It takes a few years, [but my education and mentors] prepared me well. I’m only starting to get to the point where you can start thinking independently.”

Now that his team’s Crohn’s disease research is finished, Pham is watching it move on to the next stage of the medicinal research process: treatment.

“We go from looking at individual mechanisms to treatment,” Pham said. “Once you identify [a mechanism], the hope is to interrupt signaling in that pathway in a therapeutic sense. One of the things that we did in our research was replicating a specific phenotype in Crohn’s disease by developing a new surgical mouse model of intestinal fibrosis. The next stage would be how to leverage that model to test potential interventions that act as the first steps towards a commercial treatment to treat strictures, [narrowed segments of the intestine caused by chronic inflammation].”

Pham is now working on research into pediatric liver diseases, specifically biliary atresia, where most patients require liver transplants within a few years of diagnosis. He also works with an MD-PhD candidate to manage a research team, including training new students and residents and guiding follow-up Crohn’s disease research projects. He’s currently applying to medical schools and eyeing a future in surgery and research, influenced by Hyun and the rest of his mentors.

Throughout all of this, Pham has gained some perspectives that he wants to share with Carls planning for their futures.

“At the end of the day, I got lucky in this opportunity, but I’ve striven everyday to make the most out of it,” Pham said. “I reached out and an alum happened to have a position open that fit my skillset. When it comes to research, especially right now when research funding is being cut, I believe that reaching out to alumni is still one of the best things you can do. [It may not] get you a position, but the advice is invaluable, and they might be able to point you in the right direction. It’s something that every Carleton student can do with our extensive alumni network. Whether it is research or any other field that you are passionate about, you have to keep relentlessly pursuing it.”