Dr. Jacqueline Tanaka earned a PhD in Physiology at the University of Illinois, Urbana and moved to Philadelphia as a Postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Robert Barchi’s neuroscience laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She transitioned to a research faculty position at Penn in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. Her work on ion channels began in Urbana and she continued in the Barchi laboratory where she reconstituted voltage-gated Na+ channels from muscle and demonstrated voltage-dependent gating, pharmacological block with toxins, and ion selectivity in unilamellar lipid vesicles. She transitioned to cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channels and continued these studies at Temple University with funding from the NIH National Eye Institute. She has always invested in promoting women and underrepresented students in STEM and for the past 10 years, she has been the Director of an NIH program Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC). The program provides financial support, research opportunities, mentoring and networking for TU undergraduates in their junior and senior year if they are committed to PhD or MD/PhD programs following graduation. She is happy to discuss any aspect of the STEM career development.