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12 Headlines “Why do you want to become a doctor?” The university’s medical school interview panel looked at Kevin Lee expectantly, waiting for his response to their very first question. Kevin froze. As seconds passed in silence, he had a realisation that would change his life’s direction. “I paused. For the first time, I really thought about it,” says Kevin. “My brain went blank. It might have only been five seconds, but it was a life-changing moment. “I came out of the interview feeling bad about doing badly, but also realising that maybe I had applied without passion. I didn’t really want to be a doctor.” He started his second year of biomedical science feeling quite lost. But in the second semester, something magical happened. He took a paper called MedSci 206 – Principles of Neuroscience. “I absolutely fell in love with that paper. I attended every single lecture, because I loved it. That set the path for me.” But it wasn’t to be a conventional journey. Arriving in New Zealand as a shy 12-year-old who spoke only Korean, he later gravitated towards maths and science, not because he loved them but because he struggled to express himself in English. “I could excel in subjects that were about telling the facts, not the story.” As his schooling at Auckland Grammar came to an end, he decided to study medicine. Maths was too theoretical for young Kevin so he was drawn to the tangible nature of biology. After a foundation year of biomedical science, he applied for med school – and endured the interview that changed his life. After gaining his BSc he applied for a summer studentship in the lab of Professor Johanna Montgomery at the University of Auckland, which he loved. He asked to do his Honours then PhD there. Professor Montgomery had a large project grant from the Neurological Foundation at the time. Kevin’s work involved looking at how mutations in gene expression of people with autism change connections in the brain. Towards the end of his PhD, he married Yewon Jung, who was a cancer researcher. Soon after, he and Yewon welcomed twin boys Benedict and Patrick. “I was still a student. I didn’t have a real job or earnings,” says Kevin. “A scholarship is fine for one person but not an entire family. I didn’t know how I could financially support my family. “I wrote my thesis while the boys learned to crawl,” he says. Still, he worried about income. A neuroscientist who took the LONGWAY AROUND