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52 | GRAVITAS MAGAZINE GravitasMag.com 52 | GRAVITAS MAGAZINE GravitasMag.com Alissa's family: Daughters Mallory and Ayla and her husband, Bill Edwards. encouraging me to do whatever I enjoyed. I could never get enough drawing supplies, but she always made sure I had plenty of supplies for drawing and arts and crafts. I could not get enough of sewing and sculpting. I remember the first stuffed animal I sewed at age four, and the first skirt I made at age five because they were just so significant. e whole time I just assumed I could be an artist and a doctor. Early in high school, I got a chance to volunteer at an externship in surgery. It just happened to be when I was observing a plastic surgery and I was like "wow, that's really beautiful." He was making breasts so he and I started talking about how we loved art and how he went to art school. I said to myself: that's me! I love to sculpt and I knew then I was going to be a surgeon. So how did you combine art and medicine during your undergrad years at SUNY Buffalo? e State University of New York system is huge, and they let you make up your own major if you have enough reason to do it. I entered as a Fine Arts major but then I made up a major I would call Form and Function. I threw in the art and anatomy, and whatever I thought might be pertinent. I studied how the body moved with dance, I took jewelry design and a lot of anatomy classes. When I graduated, I received two diplomas: Form and Function, and other in Sculpture for Fine Arts. If someone wanted to take that major it still exists. While I was the only one with this major, I was in the honors program. We had this giant group of like-minded people, kind of like a little Pine View, which was nice because we all had such different interests. Besides your mom, who were some of your mentors? Clyde Herreid was an Evolutionary Biologist. He was also a magician and a ventriloquist and my mentor. I actually met him in high school because I had another program where I got to do some research. His research was on cockroaches and tarantulas, and he was pure science but he made it so much fun. He taught evolution, so he would dress up as Charles Darwin to teach the class. He liked for people to think outside the box. How hard was it to study art and medicine at the same time in school? I was definitely the fish out of water there because I wasn't a pure artist; I was a scientist and an artist. Most of the time they were trying to get me to work on my art abstractly and I kept wanting to be very exact. My only "B" grade was in Art class because my teacher did not like my style – it was very subjective. ey would take away my supplies and make me draw with finger paints. It's because they wanted me to be an artist. An art class actually inspired your design for company logo. When did that happen? While I was in medical school, one of my best friends was in Sarasota working as an artist's model for the Ringling School. Just for fun I asked if I could sit in on some drawing classes. I got to keep those drawings and one of them ended up being a very quick sketch that I turned into my logo 20-years later. My friend still lives in Sarasota so she gets to see herself

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