As a child growing up in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the late 1990s, Amina Kunovac thought she wanted to be a dentist.
“I always loved going to the dentist,” said Kunovac, now 25 and in her third year at West Virginia University as a doctoral student in exercise physiology.
But things change and so did Kunovac’s life.
The three-year Bosnian War, which began shortly after the former Yugoslavia was dismantled in the early 1990s, had ended but people were still recovering from the damage that killed an estimated 100,000 people, including Kunovac’s grandparents and members of her extended family.
“Our house burned down and everything was basically gone,” said Kunovac, who is Muslim. “But, I never dreamed of leaving.”
There were no opportunities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where unemployment is in the double digits. Her mother was a homemaker because she could not find a job. Her father was a bus driver and made very little money and employment and advancement options were limited for the family.
Kunovac was 7 and had finished first grade when she learned her parents, and her brother, were going to move to the United States where they eventually ended up in Rockaway, N.J., outside of New York City. Her father now works in the construction industry and her mother is a manager in a grocery store, she said.
Learning English was tough, but Kunovac said she became fluent in three months. She did well in school and adjusted to life in the United States and the abundance of available goods.
“I remember we had a hard time finding bread that did not taste sweet,” said Kunovac, adding that her mother resorted to baking her own bread.
She also thought it strange that American children spent so much time in front of the television.
“I had one favorite television show I watched once a week,” said Kunovac, who admitted she had a tough time adjusting to American pop culture.
“I liked being outside better.”
Kunovac’s interest in becoming a doctor continued and she still wanted to one day work in the medical field. But, not as a dentist.
As an undergraduate at the University of New Haven, which she chose for its forensics program, Kunovac had a double major in forensics and biology and was a fixture on the Dean’s List, she said.
It was at New Haven she knew she wanted to go into bio-medical research and understand why things happen. To live full time in Bosnia-Herzegovina was no longer part of the plan.
“I go back every summer,” said Kunovac, who remains fluent in her native Bosnian and also understands both Serbian and Croatian.
“Just a different dialect.”
It was at WVU, however, that Kunovac said she discovered her true passion — how the future cardiovascular health of children whose mothers are exposed to engineered nanomaterial — particles found in food, medical materials and cosmetics including sunscreen — during pregnancy is affected. Through her research, she has found exposure during pregnancy can alter the fetus’ genetic material or cause cardiac dysfunction in the child through young adulthood.
“I just love children,” she said. “I wanted to research something that would help them.”
That interest, in turn, led her to apply and receive an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship, which is funding her research and will help her come closer to her goal of being a research scientist.
Her diligence in the laboratory has won her kudos from her instructors such as John Hollander, professor and assistant dean for Professional Programs, Human Performance – Exercise Physiology. It was Hollander who encouraged Kunovac to apply for the AHA fellowship.
“She is incredibly driven,” said Hollander of Kunovac, who is his graduate assistant. “That is what makes her an effective researcher. She is worried about the detail and she wants to have an impact.”
Initially Kunovac thought she might return to Bosnia to live when she is finished with her studies in May 2021.
Now, however, she is looking to stay in the medical research field and become a research scientist at the National Institutes of Health, possibly in Washington, D.C., where her brother works for the U.S. Department of Defense.
Kunovac, a U.S. citizen, said she has encountered people who behave badly toward her because she is an immigrant. But, she said, it is important for people to remember, they could one day be helped by an immigrant.
“You have to think of the bigger picture.”
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