SAN ANTONIO – 32-year-old Ste’von Voice is setting his sights on the stars quite literally.
The University of Incarnate Word graduate grew up in rural east Texas where he says he noticed early the disparity in medical care in his community and wanted to help.
But since then, he’s had an incredible journey in the world of medicine and is now working towards becoming a physician for astronauts.
“I couldn’t have this envisioned as a kid, as a young teenager, or even in my early 20′s,” Voice said.
Ste’von originally was going to go into music and entertainment. He produced music with local artists, performed at South by Southwest and was a part of many other gigs. However, he said he felt like he was meant to do more in life.
“I had this moment where I just was lost. I didn’t really understand a purpose. I thought I had a purpose, but it just became something I was just doing for a while,” he said.
That’s when he decided to enroll at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, to study crime investigation.
It was there that he was eventually led down a path to look into medical school.
After graduation, things shifted when one of his professors got him an internship at a medical examiner’s office.
Ste’von said ever since his first day there, he was absolutely intrigued. He went on to pursue a master’s degree in biomedical science.
The real turning point in his career was when he came across a plane crash case while at the medical examiner’s office. He discovered there was more to the aviation world than he ever imagined.
“I just had this whole mind blown feeling of universal divine intervention and I just went on a tangent,” he said.
That’s when he then discovered the School of Aerospace Medicine at the University of the Incarnate Word.
Ste’von has since worked as an aerospace physiology research assistant for KBR Centrifuge and Altitude Chamber Facility at Brooks City Base and started flying planes. He was also accepted into the NASA Johnson Space Center medical clerkship to do research.
Anthony Yates, a friend of many years, said everyday is always something new when he is with Ste’von.
“It was almost like every other day he was coming to my house telling me something different. He’s pulling the veils down in my living room on a weekly, if not every other week basis.”
Despite Ste’von’s incredible 10 year journey, to him it’s just getting started.
This year he plans to move to Anchorage, Alaska where he will start his medical residency.
Yates says whatever Ste’von chooses to do next in life, the sky is the limit.
“If he says he wants to do it, it’s gonna happen. Maybe not today, tomorrow, next week, or in the next couple of years, but it’ll happen. As long as he has that desire, he’s gonna go get it,” he said.