Maze turns passion into medical career

by Jeff Victor

Laramie Boomerang

LARAMIE, Wyo - Well-traveled and heavily involved in university clubs, Sarah Maze is graduating with dual majors in Spanish and physiology and dual minors in neuroscience and honors.

In recognition of her achievements and community service, she won the Martha Spitareli Award, making her the outstanding graduating woman for 2017.

After graduation, she said she plans to turn her passion for science and Spanish into good work.

"I've just always been interested in science and the natural world," she said.

"And I wanted to go into medicine because I wanted to combine that interest in science with my desire to give back and to help people, and that's kind of the optimal career path for that."

Maze, daughter of Timothy and Meg Maze of Ranchester and granddaughter of Norman and Margaret Maze of Havre, Montana, said her interests took hold at a very young age.

"Both of my parents are science teachers, so I was doomed from the start to be a nerd," she said.

Throughout high school and college, Maze has traveled to Central or South America a few times and just this semester visited Honduras.

"I really fell in love with the Latin-American culture," Maze said. "I have just really loved traveling and learning about the culture."

For a week, Maze worked for the UW-built and -maintained clinic in the rural, poverty-stricken town of Agua Salada, Honduras, where she was able to put both of her majors to good use. She said she got to see a side of life she never had before.

"It was really eye-opening," she said. "And it was really cool to just be able to talk to the locals - not through a translator, just by myself."

Maze said she clearly remembers caring for a small child who could not walk because of spina bifida and did not know how to read. When Maze found out the child's mother was also illiterate, she said she was overwhelmed.

"It floored me," Maze said. "It makes a person want to be able to have a bigger impact than that day, that two hours they were at that clinic."

On campus, Maze tried to stay active by serving on ASUW and being a member of Alpha Epsilon Delta, Phi Beta Kappa, Iron Skull, Catholics on Campus, Sigma Delta Pi and Mortar Board. But she said she still finds time to climb, fish and enjoy the outdoors.

Maze has worked in associate professor Jonathan Prather's neuroscience lab since her freshman year. She has also taken a couple of Prather's classes. He said she is dedicated and driven.

"She's very strongly self-motivated, and she's very bright and aware of, not only what she knows, but also what she doesn't know and what she needs to achieve and attain in order to succeed," Prather said. "And when you put all those things together, you get a person that's going to go a long way with their own leadership."

Prather said Maze authored an upcoming peer-reviewed publication coming out of his lab.

"I've been lucky that I've had a lot of good students come through my lab," Prather said. "But even in that context of outstanding peers, she's a stand-out."

Maze was accepted into the university's WWAMI medical program. As a participant in the program, she will be at UW another year, then transfer to the University of Washington School of Medicine to complete her education.