Inspired by an aunt with Down syndrome, Dr. Mydirah Littlepage-Saunders earned her neuroscience PhD at Uniformed Services University.
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| Dr. Mydirah Littlepage-Saunders holds her diploma after crossing the stage at the Uniformed Services University's 47th commencement ceremony at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., May 16, 2026. (Photo credit: Tom Balfour, USU) |
October 5, 2026 by Claire Pak
Dr. Mydirah Littlepage-Saunders always planned to earn the title “doctor,” but the student who once expected to put “MD” after her name became a neuroscientist instead, completing her PhD at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) in December 2025. The turn traces back to a beloved aunt with Down syndrome and to what Littlepage-Saunders learned about the condition’s link to early-onset Alzheimer’s disease: caring for patients was one way to change their lives, and solving the brain’s unanswered questions was another.
Close family members with serious health conditions first drew her toward medicine. Research gave her a way to help find treatments for neurocognitive disorders.
A Conversation at the Recruitment Table
USU was not on Littlepage-Saunders’ radar when she applied to graduate school. She had already applied to 10 programs and did not plan to add another. That changed at a scientific conference, where she met Tina Finley, a program specialist in USU’s Graduate Education Office, who was staffing the university’s recruitment table.
Littlepage-Saunders wanted one of the giveaway cups on that table but held back, assuming a health condition that rules out military service also ruled out USU. “There was a really nice cup,” she said, laughing. “I didn’t think it would be right to take one.”
Finley explained that USU accepted a small number of civilian applicants to its biomedical graduate programs and encouraged her to apply. An interview and campus visit moved USU to the top of her list.
The visit settled the question of where she wanted to be. “At that point, I realized that this place was something special, and I really wanted to study here,” she said. She remembers calling her mother from her room at the Navy Lodge, in tears, because the Neuroscience Program had interviewed 11 candidates for two spots.
She got one. Later that year, she began her graduate studies in the laboratory of Dr. Kari Johnson.
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| Dr. Mydirah Littlepage-Saunders discusses her neuroscience research during a presentation. (Photo credit: Tom Balfour, USU) |
A Scholarship Plan Made in Eighth Grade
Littlepage-Saunders grew up in a working-class family; and even as a child, she knew that college would be a financial challenge. In eighth grade, she told her mother she would earn a full scholarship. In high school, she built her record around that goal, spending hours a day on coursework and on every science event and extracurricular activity she could find. “I stacked my resume,” she said.
Temple University’s Math and Science Upward Bound Program taught her to design and run her own experiments, and she went on to compete in, and win, local and national science fairs. The work confirmed an interest that had started as a means to an end. “I found that I really loved science,” she said.
She earned the full scholarship to Lincoln University. There, in her freshman year, she learned that scientific research could be a career in its own right rather than a step toward medicine.
She measured herself against her own standard. “It was me against me,” she said. “I always wanted to do better and to exceed expectations.” Internships added hands-on preparation, from shadowing in the emergency department at Temple University Hospital, where Friday nights were “not a great time for that,” she said with a laugh, to a demanding post-baccalaureate program at the University of Iowa. She arrived at USU with the mindset and the practical experience to succeed.
The People Behind the Research
Much of her work has taken place at the laboratory bench, but Littlepage-Saunders keeps the people behind the research in view. Her late aunt remains the clearest example. “With my aunt, I was always interested in the intertwined pathology between Down syndrome and Alzheimer’s,” she said.
Down syndrome is associated with cognitive impairment, but that was never the whole picture of the woman she knew. “My aunt was, in some ways, one of the smartest and funniest people I knew,” she said.
The encouragement she found from her undergraduate professors continued at USU. She credits Dr. Barrington Burnett, professor of Anatomy, Physiology, and Genetics, who conducted her first interview; Dr. Kimberly Byrnes, director of the Neuroscience Program; Dr. Andy Snow, director of the Molecular and Cell Biology Program; Laura Baumann, associate dean for graduate student development; and Finley, whom she calls “basically Superwoman.” “People at USU were very supportive,” she said. “I always had a strong support network in graduate school.”
That network mattered three years into her program, when her first advisor left USU and she had to start over. Dr. John Wu, professor of Gynecologic Surgery and Obstetrics and an expert in her dissertation topic, became her new advisor, so she did not have to “learn a whole new language.” But, she still had to rewrite her dissertation from scratch.
With support from Wu and the Neuroscience Program, she finished in 5.5 years, six months longer than planned. She earned her PhD in December 2025 and crossed the stage at USU’s 2026 commencement on May 16.
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| Dr. Mydirah Littlepage-Saunders, left, and Laura Baumann, associate dean for graduate student development, at the Uniformed Services University's commencement ceremony, May 16, 2026. (Courtesy photo) |
From the Bench to Patient Advocacy
Littlepage-Saunders is now a postdoctoral researcher and T32 Fellow in the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging at the University of Kentucky School of Medicine. She works with cognitive neuroscientists and epidemiologists to analyze human subject data, searching for key predictors of early aging and cognitive decline.
A USU connection helped her get there. She met a University of Kentucky principal investigator at a USU Neuroscience seminar, and that relationship opened her path into the Translational Research in Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias Fellowship Program.
The postdoctoral work has widened her interests beyond the bench to teaching, scientific communication, and patient advocacy, especially for those with hard-to-understand conditions. Laughing, she says, “you would think that by the time you complete a PhD, you’d know for sure what you want to do,” but her long interest in fighting for patients and her newfound love for epidemiology have opened her eyes to a range of possibilities.
One option is to “make her own job,” combining her interests in advocacy, policy, education, and research. With first-hand experience as a patient and family member, and greater understanding of social determinants of health - such as childhood trauma and its impact on later cognitive issues - Littlepage-Saunders recognizes that “we need to study different populations in different ways,” and that everything from age, sex, race, socioeconomics, early life experience, and military vs. civilian status can impact health outcomes. Ultimately, she says, she hopes to “advocate for those who can’t advocate for themselves.”
Littlepage-Saunders’ advice for aspiring scientists extends beyond the laboratory. “Always network!” she says. “You never know who you’ll meet and what role they might play in your future. And don’t take relationships for granted.”
She has seen that play out at every stage, from a conference recruitment table to a fellowship in Kentucky. “When you have connections,” she says, “you’re never on your own.”