When Michael Liu arrived at Harvard University as an undergraduate from Toronto, he planned to become a neurosurgeon. He was fascinated by neurodegeneration and the prospect of using science to push the boundaries of what’s possible.
Then one day, a roommate dragged him to a volunteer shift at a local youth-run homeless shelter, and, as Liu put it, he fell in love. The shelter is actively inclusive of LGBTQ+ youth, which moved Liu as a gay person who had almost been disowned by his family after coming out. “I couldn’t see myself spending my career developing new therapies and new drugs when there are so many people in the world who still have so little,” he said, joking that he spent more time at the shelter than in class throughout college.
So he pivoted, studying social policy before going to medical school. Now, he’s a first-year resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, training to become a primary care physician. The curiosity and wonder that initially drew Liu to science still drives everything he does, to a stratospheric level of productivity. He’s authored more than 75 peer-reviewed publications, as the first author on 38, and with 15 published in NEJM or JAMA.
“I’ve never felt like work has been a burden,” Liu said. He remembers seeing the challenges that young people at the shelter were facing, and wanting to understand how they play out nationally or globally. “It’s these burning questions that I wanted to answer. And getting there is just so fun.”
— Theresa Gaffney
