Forging Career and Neural Pathways Through Resilience: How community support and an unwillingness to give up shaped one Poland alum’s career in biomedical research

For Briana Goggin, the concept of neuroplasticity isn’t just science; it’s the start and story of her career. For this Poland CSD alum, finding her calling as a biomedical analyst specializing in neurology was not a straight line. Like many students, her journey was filled with zigs and zags, rerouting, and resilience much like the brain's ability to reorganize itself as it forms new connections throughout life.

Briana was a junior at Poland CSD when her path zigged. Mid-school day she received the call that would change the trajectory of her life. Her father had a brain aneurysm burst. 

“He had a 16% chance of survival and a 6% chance of living a normal day-to-day life. And I was at school when all this happened,” says Goggin. “He brought me to Poland Central School that morning. Then halfway through the day, I go to BOCES. I was in the health occupations program at BOCES when I got a phone call that my dad was in the hospital. Now my dad did construction. He did carpentry. He would get routinely injured so I was never too worried about it, but this call was terrifying.”

“Talk about a school that really focuses on you as a person,” Goggin retells. “Because Poland sent a small bus to BOCES specifically to pick me and my cousin up earlier than all the other kids just to get us back to school so that I was able to get to the hospital to…potentially say my last goodbyes to my father. Thankfully, he made it and he is my best friend still to this day. He is the biggest inspiration and he looks at life like every day is a blessing, which it is.”

Briana was on track to graduate Poland and BOCES and even became a Certified Nursing Assistant before graduating, when a new seed was planted in her mind—medical research. Despite the common misconception that BOCES graduates always go directly into the workforce, Briana knew that she wanted to branch out. Thanks to some encouragement from her guidance counselor Mrs. Watrous, her economics teacher Mr. Basel, and a recruitment offer to play soccer for Hartwick College, that's exactly what she did.

Coming from a long-line of Poland CSD graduates, her family remained in Poland, NY, after graduating so going away to college was a big step for Briana. Armed with a fresh desire to understand the workings of the human brain, she worked diligently to make good grades. However, it wasn’t always easy. She didn’t pass organic chemistry with a high enough grade for her major the first time around or the second.

Despite her frustration, Briana would often recall the motivating words of her favorite Poland mentor, economics teacher and varsity soccer coach, Mr. Basel.

“Always keep going,” Mr. Basel would tell her frequently when she was in high school. “Strive for more. Do better. You can do this! If you put your mind to it, you're going to be able to accomplish whatever you want. You never fail if you never give up,” championed Mr. Basel.

So she zagged. “I did a whole extra year of college because being premed for undergraduate I had to keep higher averages in my main core classes and that was one of them,” Goggin explains.

She didn’t fail because she refused to give up. Taking an extra year for her undergraduate degree was not the end of the road.

As part of her undergraduate degree, Briana needed an internship and she received a great one with the David Price IMAC Regeneration Center in Brentwood, Tennessee. There, her internship focused on stem cell therapy, grafting cells and  plasma from the cartilage of kneecaps. They saw her dedication and desire to learn more about the field of Neurobiology. They then proposed an offer which brought her into Vanderbilt University of Medicine’s master’s degree program and even helped pay for a portion of it.

“When I did my graduate degree through Vanderbilt, I was actually only one of a team of seven that ended up focusing on Neuroscience solely. And only two of us ended up sticking with that path,” Goggin says. “Everybody else ended up switching because it's such a diverse study and in the end we may never understand everything there is to know about the brain. We're still learning about it.”

Little did she know at the time, but yet another call was about to change her direction again. Briana now is blessed to also have the title of Godmother to her cousin's daughter.

Now, Briana works full time for Vanderbilt University Medical Center remotely from Poland, NY, as a bio-medical research analyst while caring for a first-grader at her alma mater—Poland CSD. While she does research a variety of medical cases, she looks forward to the day that she receives more neurological cases.

Nurtured by a close-knit school community, Briana was able to find joy and resilience in her journey to neurology, but she knows that her story is far from over. With neurology and life, there’s always more to learn.