Hello! I'm Shelby Bess and I am currently a 5th year Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Arkansas in the department of Biomedical Engineering. Through my time as an undergraduate student and current graduate student, I have always had a passion for the biomedical sciences and more specifically cancer biology. During my undergraduate research experience, I became interested in the infamous immune cell, the macrophage. I was intrigued by the cell's complexity and wanted to learn more about the macrophage's role in the tumor microenvironment. For my current work, I use biomedical imaging modalities (fluorescence lifetime imaging, confocal and widefield microscopy, etc.) to study the interactions between macrophages and cancer cells to understand the mechanisms behind cancer cell evasion from the innate immune system.