“I was drawn to psychology by a mentor’s recommendation. He’s a practicing physician and said that psychology is an excellent path to medical school because it works well with the pre-med courses and is a great opportunity for research. He was right.
I ended up working at the Taylor Lab, where we were trying to discover the mechanism for why green light causes widespread analgesia (pain reduction throughout the body). We actually did find the answer: I was doing neurosurgery on rats, and we were able to map out that mechanism and find out why green light is a potentially great opportunity for pain treatment in patients. That discovery pulled me in deeper.
The green light research led me to join a group of peers, and together we built a fully functioning medical device. We went on to win the grand prize at the Bench to Bedside competition. We created a novel way to screen for cervical cancer: using blue light instead of white light for colposcopies.
If you shine a specific blue light wavelength at cancerous lesions on the cervix, they fluoresce bright green. You can see the cancer clearly and actually treat it right there, without a pap smear or anything. We designed it for third-world countries. Recently, the International Research Board approved our proposal, and we are now recruiting for a research study at the University of Utah.
Outside the lab, I applied what I learned in my psychology courses in a completely different arena. I am the founder and president of the biggest dance club at the University of Utah, which I have built over two and a half years.
The club allowed people from all walks of life who may have never crossed paths anywhere else to come together. Coders breaking out of their comfort zones. Country students. Athletes. People of different religions, ethnicities and sexualities. They would come together and teach each other. I genuinely feel we created a space where everyone was welcome—where everyone came together without any biases just to dance.”
— Ethan Betts, Class of 2026, B.S. in Psychology, minor in chemistry and biology, College of Social and Behavioral Science and College of Science, from North Salt Lake, Utah