Since childhood, Nathan Eapen said he always knew he wanted to serve in the military.

Serving in the Army as an indirect fire infantryman, Eapen said he wanted to give back to a country that had afforded him and his family “a great life.”

However, after sustaining an injury while in the army, Eapen’s military career ended earlier than anticipated, pushing him to figure out what to do next.

Now, Eapen works at the University of Kentucky’s Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center, drawing from his experiences in the military shooting mortars to research how the blasts and pressure waves may impact veterans’ health.

“I knew when I graduated college that I wanted to come back here and in particular, do research,” Eapen said. “That way, I could try to work on solving these problems for our people who did my job, like our fellow veteran soldiers.”

However, Eapen’s career in research was not something he had initially planned for himself. 

Unable to continue serving in the Army after sustaining an injury, Eapen pivoted career paths, leading him to study human biology, health and society at Cornell University.

Growing up in an environment that normalized care and service, Eapen said a sense of selflessness was ingrained in his mindset from a young age as he watched those around him view service as a way of life instead of a practice. 

Between his mother using her medical expertise as a missionary doctor to seeing his neighbor give up a medical career in the United States to serve the patient population in India, Eapen said he realized he too could make sacrifices for the betterment of others.

“That’s really what I hope to do, and hope I can live up to our reputation of like, really focused on patient care and really, really caring about . . . patients, like what they’re going through,” Eapen said.

After graduating from Cornell University, Eapen said he chose to come back to Kentucky, after originally moving to Lexington as a sophomore in high school, to focus on and help the state that gave him so much.

“Why take everything they’ve given me and go run off into the glory on the coast . . . when you could give it back to the people in Kentucky,” Eapen said.

Although Eapen said he had taken a “roundabout way” to get to where he is now, he believes his journey to be important.

“I’ve kind of accepted that life is on your own timeline, and it throws you curve balls and punches,” Eapen said. “You never know where it’s going to take you, but as long as you stay the course, it really does work out.”