Last week on 10/16 I attended a research seminar which 
to my surprise was quite intriguing. At first I expected to not be able to follow along with the research that was presented, but to my surprise not only was the research very interesting it was also exciting. I attended the “lightning talks” research seminar with my roommate and a couple of other friends from the STEM scholars program. There was a lot of undergraduates at this research seminar which made me feel much more comfortable with the research that was being presented to the audience. There was two different research presenters during the quick one hour seminar. The first speakers research was very intriguing. It looked into protein engineering and the making of amino acids along with the applications that the research could hold to. The research was not only interesting, but I was able to follow along pretty well with the presenter as he explained his data and trends that were observed in the lab. The reason why this research was so interesting to me was for many reasons. Since I am a chemical engineer, this research fit right into my alley. I thought it was so cool how they were able to look at amino acids at a microscopic level and were able to look at how each amino acid folds and its contents. After the presentation was over I had a couple questions for the presenter. One question I asked was if undergraduates were involved in his research. I was expecting the answer to his question to be a no, but to my surprise there were multiple undergraduates on his team. He explained to me how his undergraduates are very important to his research and without them it would not have been where it was today. In addition he told me about an undergraduate student who had a big break through which helped the amino acid research progress immensely in the right direction. The other question I had for the researcher was how long he had been conducting his research. He told me he had been working in the field of protein engineering for over 10 years which blew my mind. He clearly was an expert in his field and it was crazy to see someone that devoted to a specific topic for that long. Although his research is probably not the research that I would pick to help in, it did help expose me to the truth that you can be an undergraduate and help with important and complex research. I learned that you do not have to be an expert in the field in order to help out in the research. This is because most of the research that goes on in the lab must be taught to you and you just need laboratory background knowledge to be able to help out. Going to this seminar definitely brought the idea of participating in someones research in the future. It seems like a great experience that also can look really good for future employers.