Cohorts: Michelle Mai '23 MD'27

Michelle is a Rochester, MN, native who graduated from Brown in 2023 with a Bachelor of Science in computational biology and stayed for medical school as part of the Program in Liberal Medical Education. She has an interest in interventional radiology, and in late 2025 she published findings from a study she led that found image-guided thermal ablation can safely treat recurrent non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), which uses concentrated doses of radiation targeted at tumors throughout the body.

What first brought you to Brown?

I found the programs here great in that you get to explore a lot of different things during undergraduate courses. Early on, I studied computational biology and got to be exposed to what computer science is, but I was able to dabble in a lot of other things like philosophy and art. Coming into medical school, I feel like I was able to bring those experiences from all of those different classes and apply them to taking care of patients and learning as much as possible.

What does a typical day look like for you?

I’m now a fourth-year medical student on a sub-internship in Interventional Radiology, and I spend most of my day doing clinical work, which involves assisting with procedures, checking on hospitalized patients, and learning a ton! After work, you can either find me at Pizza Marvin or spending time with my friends before another day at the hospital.

What got you interested in studying interventional radiology and the effects of image-guided thermal ablation?

I've really been interested in interventional radiology because the procedures that are done by interventional radiologists  are innovative and offer solutions to problems where no other option may exist. One of my particular interests relates to cancer research, and my mentor, DaeHee Kim, MD, divisional director of interventional radiology, and I studied the options for treating lung cancer that has recurred under conventional therapies. With something like NSCLC, conventional treatment is surgery but there are patients who are not candidates for various reasons. These patients typically undergo radiation therapy, but among thosewho have  recurred despite radiation, a discussion with a multidisciplinary tumor board is needed as there’s limited data on what else we can offer. .Many times, these patients get referred to interventional radiology for ablation, which offers them another chance at curative treatment, and I found that to be really powerful.

Through our study, we found that in these non-surgical patients with evidence of cancer recurrence after radiation, undergoing thermal ablation is safe and leads to median survival time of 51 months. This study shows how IR is an integral part of  a patients’ cancer journey and it’s in our duty as future physicians to understand the treatment landscape and give patients options that best align with their goals. It's surreal now being in the clinical space, seeing patients similar to those in our study receive thermal ablation for their lung cancer. It’s reinforced my inspiration for going into medicine and why I’m hoping to  go into interventional radiology.  Offering people safe and effective interventions, with a constant mindset figuring out how to make a patient’s experience better, has really drawn me to this field. I love working on new research to support this, and I believe our paper on lung ablation shows that even if you fail multiple treatment avenues, there are things we can still do to help patients get better.

What do you enjoy doing outside of your work at Brown?

Currently I’m part of the Society of Interventional Radiology and I was one of their Medical Student Scholars for 2025.I’m also very excited by the clinical trial space, especially in IR, so part of my work outside of school involves educating trainees and early-career IRsabout upcoming clinical trials that could inform treatment. I also get to spend my free time throwing  pottery (although I’m still very much a novice), running, or going on impromptu ice-cream runs with my friends.