Being involved in many student organizations — and helping start one — while also assisting in various research opportunities has led Anna Brake to get out of her comfort zone and now she is graduating with honors from Wichita State. 

Brake is getting an Honors Baccalaureate, which combines majors from different colleges, in biology and public health, and will be attending the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Wichita in the fall.

When the Wichita Biomedical Campus opens in 2027, Brake said she will finish her time at medical school there. 

“I’ve been looking at infectious disease or family medicine,” Brake said. “Probably closer to family medicine right now. I’ve been working at a family medicine clinic and I really enjoy that and I’m hoping to stay in Wichita after I graduate.”

For medical school, Brake was admitted to an early admission program called the Scholars in Urban Health, which offers students acceptance into the KU School of Medicine a year early based on achievements in their undergraduate studies. 

“She’s a very accomplished student,” Assistant Director of the Liberal Arts and Sciences advising center Nancy Krehbiel said. “… She’s very poised, very thoughtful, asks really perceptive questions when she is trying to figure things out or weigh pros and cons of a decision.”

During her time at WSU, Brake said she has shadowed and volunteered at multiple hospitals in Wichita. Recently, she has been working at two clinics, as a medical assistant at Wichita Direct Primary Care for two years and also at a residency clinic at Wesley Family Medicine. 

“I actually get to work with the doctors who are in training, who finished medical school bar, practicing on their own,” Brake said. “And I love getting to work with them and watching what they do and that’s something that I fully want to commit myself to doing in the future.”

Brake was also involved with a research project at WSU with Department Chair of Public Health Nikki Keene Woods that focused on developing wearable fetal heart monitors. Brake said she found out about the project through reading the Shocker Blast newsletter. 

“I emailed the primary investigator on the case, who was Nikki Keene Woods … she said I could join, so I’ve been with that research ever since freshman year.” Brake said. “It’s been so cool and I got to attend a research conference, present our research at multiple places.”

Woods said Brake always goes above and beyond with the research she does and “has really evolved in her role, from a student mentee to really a team leader for the other students.”

“All of those little pieces of hard work that she’s been able to pull together have really helped her launch and be successful in her own studies,” Woods said. 

Brake helped design a survey for the project, administer it and later presented it at a conference in Minnesota. She is now helping with manuscript writing and working with an engineering team to develop the heart monitors.

“I think that Anna has no fear when it comes to jumping into the unknown,” Woods said. “So she’s willing and she’s curious and doesn’t let the lack of details or the lack of knowing exactly what it’s going to be get in her, she kind of jumps with both feet and learns as she goes.”

Brake said she chose WSU for her undergraduate degree because she is from Wichita and wanted to stay in the area, and because of the scholarships she was offered. 

“I think we have a really cool mix of people at this school, it’s a pretty diverse campus and I really enjoyed meeting people here,” Brake said. “And for the courses that I wanted to go into, I think that they have a really solid program for biology and public health.”

Getting help from advisors and professors with job experience and internships was also something she said WSU helped her with a lot. 

Brake said she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go into medicine or technology, but after an internship at Textron, working at the tech helpdesk, it showed her that medical was what she ultimately wanted. 

“It’s interesting, the opportunities we have here (at WSU) to help us decide what we want to do and also what we don’t want to do,” Brake said. 

Brake also helped start the WSU Arab Student Association during her freshman year, and she said the organization grew to about 60 students by the end of it. 

“I loved that when I was in the Arab Student Association, we could get food and everything together, we could rent out a space in the RSC just for free and just do that stuff,” Brake said. “It was so much fun. I really like that WSU gives us all of those cool ways for us to meet.”

Other organizations she has been involved with include the Student Ambassador Society, which is offered through the Office of Admissions, HEALTH Student Organization and Premedical Student Association. 

“She’s been very active on our campus,” Krehbiel said. “She was involved on the executive board of the Premedical Student Association, which is an organization I advise, and she was really great in that role.”

Krehbiel said she’s known Brake since she was a high school student, helping her look at colleges to apply to, and she’s seen Brake accomplish a lot on campus since her freshman year. 

“I’m from Wichita, so I had a few friends from my high school who were coming here, but I had never been the most talkative, outgoing person, and I knew that for my career goals, I have to talk to people at least a little bit,” Brake said. 

She said she started going to a lot of campus events and signing up for student groups her freshman year — even when she had to go by herself. 

“That was a really great way for me to step out of my comfort zone and meet people and actually get a little bit more outgoing, which I think it definitely worked,” Brake said. “Outside of that, I think the organizations offer really great opportunities to meet people who are interested in similar or completely different things than you and learn a little bit about their perspective.”

Krehbiel said in her role as a pre-med advisor, she sees many students who want to go into medical school and that Brake “is the type of person that I would want providing health care for me or my family.”

“I’m really excited, I think I’m ready to be done,” Brake said about getting ready to graduate. “I really enjoyed being at WSU, looking back at it, I think I’ll treasure these years for sure … I have  really tried to be involved with the school and the community that the school has is really cool.”