Caltech Grad Student Named as Quad Fellow

Caltech graduate student Honami Tanaka has been named to the 2024 cohort of the Quad Fellowship, an initiative of the governments of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States designed to promote social good and foster intercultural ties through scientific and technological innovation. This year, the cohort also includes students from Southeast Asian countries in addition to the original quad countries.

Tanaka, a PhD student in neurobiology, is one of 50 graduate students selected for the fellowship, which is administered by the Institute of International Education. The award includes a $40,000 scholarship that can be used for academic costs related to graduate studies in the United States. In addition, Tanaka will have opportunities to participate in cross-cultural exchange activities and mentorship programs with global leaders.

Tanaka will get a chance to meet the rest of her cohort in October at a summit for Quad Fellows in Washington, D.C. "I'm excited to meet peers who are also passionate about making positive impacts on society," she says. "I hope to meet people from diverse backgrounds, potentially have collaborations, and expand my horizons."

Tanaka's interest in helping society through science began early in life. "I have an older sister with autism, and I grew up very interested in neurodevelopmental disorders and psychiatry," she says. "She inspired me to do science and get into this field. I really just wanted to make her life better."

After attending high school in Japan, Tanaka earned her BA in biochemistry and psychology from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. When COVID hit, she returned to her hometown of Fukuoka, Japan, and worked there for two years as a technician in a research lab.

Although she had planned to go to medical school, Tanaka's experience in the lab—part of which was related to autism—led her to consider graduate school, specifically Caltech. While in Japan, she had read papers by Sarkis Mazmanian, the Institute's Luis B. and Nelly Soux Professor of Microbiology, Merkin Institute Professor, and affiliated faculty member with the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech; on associations between the gut microbiome and autism, and wanted to study with him. Tanaka came to Caltech on a Fulbright fellowship in 2022.

Tanaka's research in the Mazmanian lab explores the connections between the gut, the brain, and the immune system, and how those interactions shape behaviors, particularly in the context of neurodevelopmental disorders.

She says microbiome research is inspiring because it has the potential to create positive impacts for society. "We now know that the microbiome is associated with many different diseases and conditions," she says, "and that opens up space for noninvasive treatments and preventions for conditions that right now can only be treated with invasive technologies as well as conditions that currently have no effective treatments."

Microbiome research may also open doors to more affordable and accessible care for those who have struggled to get health care treatments that require hospital visits or surgeries. Tanaka credits an undergraduate internship in Ghana, where she visited rural villages and saw how people struggled to access basic medical care, with opening her eyes to the issue of accessibility for vulnerable populations. "We can develop cutting-edge treatments or prevention strategies," she says, "but if they're not accessible or affordable, they won't reach everyone."

As Tanaka begins her third year at Caltech, her sister, who lives in Japan, is, "doing fine without any help from me," she says. "But our childhood still fuels me and keeps me moving forward."