Yes, it looks like our young researchers had a great time and learned a ton in just eight short weeks. Most of them think they’re on the right career track too, which is always a nice thing. As for Jessica Shuen …well, the smile and the shirt speak for themselves.
Stop back tomorrow afternoon and see some images from the poster session. Better yet: come by in person if you can! 10:30 to Noon in the LSRC atrium.
Some students know what they’re going to be when they grow up from the minute they set foot on a college campus. Others are less certain and willing to let the college experience show them the way. Kalen Riley is in the latter camp, though he has found the Howard Hughes summer fellowship in Ryohei Yasuda’s neurobiology lab enlightening.
Having had zero research experience prior to Howard Hughes, I faced a great difficulty in deciding what was best for me. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to do research this summer, and although I still am not one hundred percent sure of anything yet, I am definitely heading in the right direction.
That sounds like the most any 19-year-old could hope for. Way to go, Kalen!
Working in the lab has been a big hit with many of the HHMI summer fellows.
Racquel Quarless is sold on her experience in George Truskey’s biomedical engineering lab. “I am almost positive that biomedical research is the field in which I would like to make a career. I am intrigued by the remarkable progress and potential of the field and I am excited to see where my work in the lab will take me.”
Kristin Knouse is having such a good time in Xiao-Fan Wang’s cancer biology lab that she’s thinking of adding a PhD to her goal of an MD. “A combined MD/PhD degree would allow me to combine both the research and clinical aspects of medicine. More specifically, I feel that the fields of cancer biology and infectious disease are exciting, dynamic fields that could be pursued as a physician scientist.”
And Sidney Kuo has progressed from documenting how painful it is to be in Fred Dietrich’s lab at the ungodly hour of 9 a.m. to willingly putting in extra hours toward the big goal. “What I didn’t see beforehand, however, is the importance of having an ultimate goal in mind. That goal is what makes me willingly want to spend more time after work, or go in on weekends to work. And the progress that is made from all this work toward this goal is a very exhilarating form of satisfaction, something that makes work ultimately enjoyable despite the reptitive nature of the process.”
