/undergrad-research/ en /undergrad-research/blog/2023/08/look-remote-summer-research-collapse-silicon-valley-bank This summer, I had the opportunity to perform undergraduate research through the Research Experience and Apprenticeship Program (REAP) offered by... Wed, 23 Aug 2023 12:00:00 +0000 /undergrad-research/191 /undergrad-research/blog/2022/07/finding-what-you-are-passionate-about During my two years at Â鶹Éç that I have pursued research in biochemistry, I have learned the importance of exploring different options to find the work I am passionate about. I decided to pursue lab work because I was interested in it as a career path and wanted to make sure I enjoyed it. I worked in a plant genomics lab starting in my second semester at the Â鶹Éç, continuing over the summer after being granted an Undergraduate Research Award (URA), and into the fall of my sophomore year. Working with Dr. Estelle Hrabak, I was testing the effectiveness of three ways to fix a root growth defect in Arabidopsis thaliana. I enjoyed working in the lab and I learned new techniques, how to troubleshoot when experiments were not going the way I wanted them to, and how to approach scientific writing. But it became evident to me that I wanted to pursue a different career path in human medicine and I needed to make a change in the type of research I was doing. Tue, 19 Jul 2022 12:00:00 +0000 /undergrad-research/155 /undergrad-research/blog/2022/06/how-write-research-grant-proposal I learned a lot about writing a proposal for a research grant when I applied for a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF), and there’s a lot I wish I knew before I started. Since writing my first proposal a year ago, I have written two more and want to share some do’s and don’ts that I learned along the way. While my research focus is drug discovery for triple negative breast cancer, these tips can be applied to proposal writing in any field. Wed, 01 Jun 2022 12:00:00 +0000 /undergrad-research/156 /undergrad-research/blog/2022/02/how-overcome-daunting-task-searching-mentor-reap Do you have a great research idea but no mentor? Are you struggling to find the perfect mentor fit for your project? Here is my story about how I found a mentor only one month prior to the research grant application deadline. The Research Experience and Apprenticeship Program (REAP), a grant program through the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research, requires that a first-year student be nominated by a faculty member and then work with a faculty mentor on a research project. In the fall of my first year at Â鶹Éç, one of my professors agreed to nominate me for REAP, and I had a research idea to investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted women in the workforce. But I lacked just one thing, a faculty mentor to work with me on my research. Tue, 15 Feb 2022 12:00:00 +0000 /undergrad-research/160 /undergrad-research/blog/2021/08/mentorship-first-drafts-are-pivotal-undergraduate-research This summer, I have been conducting research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women’s lives as well as finding and pursuing solutions to solve inequities in society that were exasperated by the pandemic. I took my first week of research to focus on an overview of problems which primarily impacted women during the pandemic. Tue, 31 Aug 2021 12:00:00 +0000 /undergrad-research/168