Waurn Pond’s Gabrielle Lang will swap biomedicine for the catwalk later this year after making the finals of Top Model Australia.
The 20-year-old, who also speaks Indonesian, was one of eight women to progress in the competition’s Victorian final at Werribee last weekend.
“If you win the nationals you get to compete in London,” she said.
“I’m pretty excited about that.”
The 20-year-old described modelling as a fun and creative escape from the stress of studying biomed.
“It lets you have your freedom,” she said.
“I just started my second year and there’s a lot lab time and studying.”
She first hit the catwalk a few years ago “on a whim” when a competition came to her previous hometown of Ballarat.
She moved to study biomedicine at Deakin University, motivated in part by an immune disease called neutropenia that she, her mother, grandmother and other relatives have.
The condition occurs when a person has a lack of neutrophils, a type white blood cell that fights infection.
“I started learning about it in school – the immune system and how it works – and I found it fascinating,” she said.
“I’d love to be part of a team working on vaccines or other preventative measures for infectious diseases.”
