Annelise Huynh, a chemical biosciences and music performance senior, is preparing for her OU graduation among the skyscrapers of Boston.
Huynh is a Tulsa native spending her final semester as an intern at Massachusetts General Hospital. She said she was initially drawn to OU by its research opportunities and medical programs.
“OU was a natural choice for me because I know that it has a really good pre-med program, …” Huynh said. “(OU is) an R1-level institution, so that was the initial draw.”
OU is a Carnegie Foundation R1 institution, which is the highest designation given to a university for research activity.
An aspiring physician who has played piano since the age of 5, Huynh said she felt fortunate to study in both fields.
“College is the perfect time to explore, …” Huynh said. “When else would I ever have the opportunity to pursue music theory classes or all these music history classes?”
The decision to pursue both her professional goals and her personal interests has been a defining characteristic of Huynh’s time in Norman.
“I feel like a lot of my OU journey, undergraduate journey, has been trying to merge those two things together,” Huynh said.
The desire to weave medicine and music together drove Huynh to launch Music Outreach at the University of Oklahoma, an organization that aims to bring live music to vulnerable communities.
“Me and my friend, Joseph Mathew, … actually thought of this idea in the Chick-fil-A line in freshman year,” Huynh said. “It took a couple years to get it actually started.”
Huynh said she hopes to harness the medical benefits of music to help residents of hospice care facilities, hospitals and other nonprofits.
According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, the cognitive effects of music can have physical and psychological benefits. While the connection between music and health is still being studied, it has been found to help alleviate anxiety, reduce depression, and even promote rehabilitation in patients who have experienced strokes.
“There was so much talent in the school of music that I wanted to bring out to the community, …” Huynh said. “I knew that, coming from a biomedical perspective, that music has a lot of healing benefits.”
Beyond performances at medical facilities across central Oklahoma, Music Outreach organized the Katlett 4 Kids fundraiser to benefit the Oklahoma Children’s Hospital. The first event, held in March 2025, raised over $6,500 for the hospital’s musical therapy department.
“That was just an awesome culmination of how could we bring a skill set that we knew towards improving healing for a vulnerable population like the children at the hospital,” Huynh said.
While reflecting on her work with Music Outreach and Massachusetts General Hospital, Huynh said she still feels compelled to provide a level of care that music alone cannot match.
“Even if I could elicit some sort of happiness or … some brief respite from just the monotony of being in the hospital, I was happy to do that,” Huynh said. “I always wanted to find some way to provide more relief.”
Her desire to provide meaningful, long-term solutions to patients has driven Huynh to pursue several cancer research opportunities, including the First-Year Research Experience program through the Honors College and a summer internship at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
“It was really cool to be able to do research during the day, but then shadow physicians who were actively treating patients with the disease I was trying to find solutions to,” Huynh said, reflecting on her 10 weeks at MD Anderson.
When summer ended, Huynh wanted to continue research, even during the school year. After emailing several researchers in Boston, Huynh secured the opportunity to conduct research in a lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, home to one of the nation's top-ranked cancer programs.
After securing the research opportunity in Boston, Huynh says she had to adjust her plans to graduate in four years. This change involved shifting to a planned program, which allows OU students to craft a degree plan that aligns with their unique professional interests.
“The thing about OU is that … there's just so much opportunity for you to find your way, …” Huynh said. “(I’m) just beyond grateful for OU.”
Following graduation, Huynh plans to remain in Boston as she completes medical school applications. She says that she appreciates being exposed to new perspectives and hopes to continue to learn from different models of care in Massachusetts.
“Ultimately, I'm driven by where I think my services would be best fit. If that's Oklahoma, I would love to come back, but I would definitely love to learn from models of care in different parts of the country,” Huynh said.
This story was edited by Anusha Fathepure, Macey Thaxton and Natalie Armour. Tori Pham copy edited this story.
