Sometimes it can be difficult to see how far you have grown, until you look at where you started. In writing this year-in-review, and in reexamining where I began, I have found this year to have been the most transformative of both my academic and personal life.
There is one experience that immediately comes to mind, having impacted both my professional and personal goals. This was my time spent with the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. I worked again in the Lewkowich lab, continuing my research from the previous semester. I was initially nervous to start SURF, as it was a full-time, 10-week program. However, my fears quickly disappeared. Being able to work full-time at the lab was very different than coming in for just a couple hours between classes, like I did during school. I was able to plan whole experiments and be present for every part of them. I became much more integrated into the lab and felt like I was truly a part of the team, rather than just an add-on.
In addition, I was able to take on my own project developing a mouse model to examine the effects of paternal allergen exposure on the development of asthma in offspring. This was definitely an all-around learning experience; I had to learn how to work with and treat mice, how to organize breeding schemes, how to keep an accurate record of the experiment, and even how to communicate with my supervisors about my progress. Those 10 weeks passed by faster than I ever thought they could. I distinctly remember, the last week that I was in the lab full-time, thinking “I could do this for the rest of my life”. I began SURF thinking that I would be excited when it was over and I was going back to school, but by the end of it, I didn’t want to leave.
Although SURF was over by the end of the summer, I continued part-time work in my lab through RAMP in the fall semester. Finally, I began to collect data from the paternal allergen experiment I had started over the summer. Just in time, I had information to present when my lab attended the Autumn Immunology Conference (AIC) in Chicago. I worked with my lab mentor to develop a 10-minute oral presentation and a poster to present at the meeting. I was extremely nervous to present at a professional conference, but I left the meeting not only gaining skills in communication and presentation, but also renewed personal confidence. I also continued my lab work into the spring semester, this time using the experience as academic credit. In April, I again presented my project in a poster at the UC Undergraduate Scholarly Showcase (see the picture below), which was a breeze compared to presenting at AIC! In total, my lab experience this year has solidified my desire to pursue biomedical research as a career. I have seen what it takes to be a graduate student and my goals for the next year are to develop my professional skills and resumé to prepare myself to apply for graduate school.
Finally, one the of the most exciting parts of this year was becoming a published author not just once, but twice! In October, I was listed as a co-author in a publication from the Lewkowich Lab, entitled "Combined administration of anti-IL-13 and anti-IL-17A at individually sub-therapeutic doses limits asthma-like symptoms in a mouse model of Th2/Th17 high asthma." Then, in spring of 2019, an essay I had written for an Intermediate Composition course was published in Queen City Writers, a journal featuring undergraduate work. You can find my essay "Raising a Researcher: The Role of Mentorship in Laboratory Environments" here. It was so rewarding to see some of the work I had done in the lab be recognized in a published manuscript, as well as to see my original essay published for others to read!
There is one experience that immediately comes to mind, having impacted both my professional and personal goals. This was my time spent with the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. I worked again in the Lewkowich lab, continuing my research from the previous semester. I was initially nervous to start SURF, as it was a full-time, 10-week program. However, my fears quickly disappeared. Being able to work full-time at the lab was very different than coming in for just a couple hours between classes, like I did during school. I was able to plan whole experiments and be present for every part of them. I became much more integrated into the lab and felt like I was truly a part of the team, rather than just an add-on.
In addition, I was able to take on my own project developing a mouse model to examine the effects of paternal allergen exposure on the development of asthma in offspring. This was definitely an all-around learning experience; I had to learn how to work with and treat mice, how to organize breeding schemes, how to keep an accurate record of the experiment, and even how to communicate with my supervisors about my progress. Those 10 weeks passed by faster than I ever thought they could. I distinctly remember, the last week that I was in the lab full-time, thinking “I could do this for the rest of my life”. I began SURF thinking that I would be excited when it was over and I was going back to school, but by the end of it, I didn’t want to leave.
Although SURF was over by the end of the summer, I continued part-time work in my lab through RAMP in the fall semester. Finally, I began to collect data from the paternal allergen experiment I had started over the summer. Just in time, I had information to present when my lab attended the Autumn Immunology Conference (AIC) in Chicago. I worked with my lab mentor to develop a 10-minute oral presentation and a poster to present at the meeting. I was extremely nervous to present at a professional conference, but I left the meeting not only gaining skills in communication and presentation, but also renewed personal confidence. I also continued my lab work into the spring semester, this time using the experience as academic credit. In April, I again presented my project in a poster at the UC Undergraduate Scholarly Showcase (see the picture below), which was a breeze compared to presenting at AIC! In total, my lab experience this year has solidified my desire to pursue biomedical research as a career. I have seen what it takes to be a graduate student and my goals for the next year are to develop my professional skills and resumé to prepare myself to apply for graduate school.
Finally, one the of the most exciting parts of this year was becoming a published author not just once, but twice! In October, I was listed as a co-author in a publication from the Lewkowich Lab, entitled "Combined administration of anti-IL-13 and anti-IL-17A at individually sub-therapeutic doses limits asthma-like symptoms in a mouse model of Th2/Th17 high asthma." Then, in spring of 2019, an essay I had written for an Intermediate Composition course was published in Queen City Writers, a journal featuring undergraduate work. You can find my essay "Raising a Researcher: The Role of Mentorship in Laboratory Environments" here. It was so rewarding to see some of the work I had done in the lab be recognized in a published manuscript, as well as to see my original essay published for others to read!