Khukheper Awakoaiye (c'14) received his white coat, symbolizing the beginning of his medical training at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, on August 4, 2023 in Chicago. He joins a small group of African-American males in medical school, and an even smaller percentage who pursue a joint MD/PhD program. Khukheper begins Northwestern's Medical Science Training Program (MSTP), a nationally established MD/PhD program. MSTPs are 8-year, National Institutes of Health (NIH) training programs designed to produce research-physicians. The NIH funded programs provide full tuition and an annual stipend to all students. MSTPs combines 4 years of medical school training with 4 years of research, at the conclusion of which trainees receive an MD and a Ph.D. He was admitted to 6 programs, including University of Texas, Houston, University of Illinois in Chicago, Icahn School of Medicine in New York, Indiana University, and UMass Chan Medical School. The Howard University graduate chose Northwestern because of their strength in research, specifically neuroscience. For Khukheper, Northwestern is a "great school and program, but it's located in Chicago", where his two older siblings live, and his previous visits to Chicago lent a familiarity that the other programs lacked. He joins 16 other students in Northwestern's MSTP, and one other African-American. Outside of the MSTP students, the first year medical school class includes nearly 20 Black students, and is already a fairly closed-knit group. Khukheper found the inclusion of Blacks in the program to be one of its highlights. The percentage of Black males attending medical school has barely changed in over 40 years, and less than 7% of all MD/PhD students are African-Americans, and even fewer are males (close to 3%). He was aided in his success by previous research and shadowing opportunities, having researched in a lab at Howard University, Scripps in San Diego, UC San Diego, and Genentech. He feels that "half the battle (of making it into an MD/PhD program) is your mindset and confidence going into a rigorous program". Starting early (his first research was in high school) prepared him well, along with "the mentors that helped along the way". Prior to beginning medical school he graduated from Howard University where he earned a 4.0 GPA, and received a BS in biology as a member of the 2nd cohort of the Karsh STEM Program, a honors program which cultivates undergraduate students for doctoral studies. After graduating he spent a gap year in Oakland, and conducted research at UC San Francisco in the Swanson Lab, examining inflammation in neurological diseases like Parkinson’s. Since 2019, Khukheper is 1 of 6 Ile Omode alum currently pursuing a doctoral degree. 
