Wednesday, October 7, 2026
Meet Ka Nam Cloey Fong, a UNT undergraduate working on her degree in Medical Laboratory Sciences (MLS) who recently completed an internship with LabCorp.
Cloey FongMeet Ka Nam Cloey Fong, a UNT undergraduate working on her degree in Medical Laboratory Sciences (MLS) who recently completed an internship with LabCorp. During her internship experience, Cloey gained experience handling specimen processing in a microbiology lab in Dallas that serves the entire midwestern U.S.
 
“This experience gave me informed expectations of the career duties of an MLS, so I feel better prepared about life after college,” she said. “I also learned more about myself, observing how I act under pressure and how quickly I can learn new skills. I made connections between the material I learned in class and their applications in the lab, and I now know areas I can improve upon to be successful in my future career.”
Most of her work at Labcorp was with Acid-Fast Bacilli, a type of bacteria with a thick waxy outer cell wall, particularly difficult to treat (the most well-known example of these bacteria is tuberculosis).
“I would receive almost every type of specimen like sputum, tissue, and blood. My job was to transfer the specimens to tubes, decontaminate and centrifuge them, then inoculate the concentrated bacteria samples and incubate them,” said Cloey, who was recently accepted to the United Regional Medical Laboratory Science program in Wichita Falls to begin her clinicals in January.
During her shifts, Cloey would receive anywhere between 30 to 80 specimens. The internship showed her what it's like to work in a real-world medical laboratory setting and gave her the chance to make connections with lab professionals as she learned about the different departments, machines, and procedures at LabCorp.
Cloey found herself drawn to the lab after pursuing a nursing degree at Baylor and realizing it was not quite the right fit for her career aspirations. Attending clinicals, however, gave her exposure to other healthcare professions — which led her to the laboratory.
 
“It was impossible to deny how crucial laboratory work was to almost every step of the treatment process, from helping doctors with diagnoses to treatment plans and discharge criteria,” she explained. “I became curious about how these results were determined, and left nursing school to pursue a career in the lab.”
For the past year, Cloey has been working in Dr. Warren Burggren’s Developmental Physiology Laboratory at UNT collecting data for tissue specimens. Last semester she helped with research involving the effects of an epileptic condition called Dravet Syndrome on heart tissue.
 
"In Dr. Burggren’s lab, I was tasked with cutting the samples into very thin slices to be viewed under the microscope, a process called histology,” she said. “This semester, I am also performing histology on the organs of alligator embryos as my lab mentor hopes to make an atlas of alligator tissues throughout different stages of their embryonic development period.”
 
This experience helped her secure the internship. “I learned about the opportunity while working on an assignment and after reading the description, realized that I qualified for the position and decided to apply!” she said. “I was able to talk about my research experience in the interview which I believe was a large factor for my acceptance.”  
 
Cloey said there are two College of Science faculty whose mentorship led her here: Dr. Gil Martinez Bautista and Dr. Lisa Welch.
 
“Dr. Bautista did not hesitate to give me a place in his lab and allowed me to participate in many experiments, giving me the chance to learning about academic research and what it takes to carry out experiments in college,” she said. “And my academic advisor Dr. Lisa Welch is a wonderful reference for MLS students. She goes above and beyond advising our class scheduling, from helping with assignments to arranging in-person clinical program director visits to help us plan our futures.”
 
Cloey plans to graduate in January of 2028, and after graduation, she hopes to embark on the journey to become a pathological assistant. She said her advice to other undergrad students looking to pursue internship opportunities like hers is to consider gaining experience in a lab first!