Anticipation reverberated from a crowd of more than 160 fourth-year medical students at the University of Colorado School of Medicine on March 21 as they counted down the seconds until they could open the envelopes in their hands. While small in size, each envelope held big, life-changing news: the residency program the student will go to after graduation, marking the next chapter in their journey to becoming physicians. The day, known as Match Day, is an annual event where medical students across the country simultaneously learn the residency program they have “matched” into.

Growing up, Jenny Knight’s mind concentrated on how things worked. Plants and animals were fascinations; by the time she was a college student, she zoomed in on the workings of the brain. “I was a biology major with a concentration in neuroscience and then went on to get a Ph.D. in neuroscience,” she said. “I just got fascinated by how this incredibly complex system, our brain, governs everything we do." A professor of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology at CU Boulder, Knight last year was named a President’s Teaching Scholar at CU.