My STEP project allowed me to take part in undergraduate research. This summer, I was able to work as a research assistant at the Wright Center of Innovation in Biomedical Imaging. The study I worked on focused on developing new imaging techniques for optimizing diagnosis of illnesses.

While completing my STEP project, I was able to have a first-hand experience in the medical field. My goal is to become a medical doctor, therefore, this allowed me to work directly with people I aspire to be. However, this experience was in research, rather than direct patient care. Whenever I thought of my life as a doctor, I visualized treating patients in exam rooms. My STEP project, though, opened my eyes to the research sector of the medical field, a sector I was previously oblivious to. At first, I found this new experience very interesting and even considered going into research after undergrad, rather than medical school. After some time, though, I realized that the research field is not for me. While my views of myself did not change during this experience, it did allow me to see the medical field from a different perspective.

Being unfamiliar with the research side of the medical field, my main goal during this project was to gain a good understanding of the process and craft. Throughout my project, I had the opportunity to work alongside various members of the medical research community. For example, I interacted with radiologists, neurologists, oncologists, PhD researchers, medical students, nurses, and computer programmers. Experience with each individual allowed me to understand that there are many people responsible for the outcome of a study, aside from just the doctors and PIs. Therefore, I was able to better understand the entire process of clinical research by looking at it from multiple perspectives.

Although I strive to become a doctor, I feel that it is very important to understand every role that is responsible in making not only a hospital successful, but also a clinical study successful. My time at the research lab definitely opened my eyes to the importance of team work. One situation in which I learned this involves me having to program an algorithm. Being a pre-med neuroscience major, I had no prior knowledge of computer programming. Feeling lost, I reached out to a computer programmer who worked at the lab. He was very eager to help and assist me in creating the needed algorithm. Before this STEP project, I would have been in disbelief that medical research even involved computer programmers.

Aside from interactions with the various roles of the research team, my personal duties gave me great insight into the process of clinical research. For example, some of my jobs included tracking lesions of interest in patients and gathering data on these lesions. While this was very interesting work, it could get very monotonous. Previous to my STEP experience, I always associated doctor’s work to that depicted on various fictional medical television shows. During my time in the lab, however, rather than working in a busy, dynamic emergency room, I was staring at body scans on computer monitors for hours. My experience gave me real insight into a field of medicine that was very new to me.

Although I loved working in the lab and was able to interact with amazing people every day, I understand that the research side of medicine isn’t for me. My STEP experience allowed me to gain a good understanding of the process of clinical research. I was able to see that a successful clinical study requires many different people with a very diverse skillset. I can take what I learned during my summer in the lab, and apply it to the direct, patient-care side of healthcare. Even though I don’t plan on going into research in the future, STEP gave me the opportunity to confirm where my passions in life lie.

AB_Wollet_OSUMC_trainee_day_esophageal_dyn_V02

My STEP Signature Project involved being an intern at a lab at the poultry barn at Ohio State, where I worked with genetically modified quail. These quail were either wild type or homozygous for a myostatin knockout gene that has been shown in other species to improve muscle growth as myostatin is a negative regulator of muscle growth. I was in charge of health checks, providing food and water, as well as weighing and collecting data of the quail from the fifth day they were born up until day 40.
While completing this step project I learned a lot about myself and the type of work that I want to do after college. Most of the work I was doing wasn’t very challenging and was very much routine day to day activities. However, because I knew that it was all going to be for a greater purpose and would lead to new scientific discoveries, it made the work much more enjoyable. I realized that I want to be involved in research as a veterinarian, and more specifically research towards the end of the process, such as working in clinical trial research. While I did enjoy working with the quail I did discover that working with cats and dogs is something I prefer over poultry. I learned a lot about what goes into animal research and how to read and present information from research papers as well as the type of data analysis that is most commonly used in research. This project also really changed my perspective on research and showed me that there is still so much we don’t know. Talking about future projects and the significance of our specific project was very eye opening and got me excited when thinking about the future of animal science research. With only very recently having been able to create germline chimeras in poultry, it has opened up a whole new realm of possibilities.
Starting off with significant events during the project, I think the team meeting we had with everyone involved in the lab was a great way to begin the project. It allowed the other intern and I to get to know everyone, understand the project, its significance, and during it we presented our findings that we believed were significant to our project that we found in various research papers. This helped us form a relationship with our PI and post-doc, as well as get to know each other in the process. Me and the other intern were able to lean on each other throughout the internship, even in non lab related things, like when we were both applying to veterinary school. We were able to talk about what we found interesting and what we wanted to do after school which helped me to understand my passions for research. Getting to work everyday with people that were so passionate about science was really inspiring and made me want to continue to be a part of the research process in the future.
Having meetings with our PI also opened my eyes to the hundreds of opportunities under the umbrella of animal science research. The way he talked about the potential projects we could take on after we finished the current project showed he truly believed the work we were doing would change the world. An example of this is when we talked about using special egg albumin as a way to potentially make new drugs that would help reduce the price of life saving medicine. He also taught us about the inner workings of the research project, and how it involves a lot of behind the scenes work such as writing up proposals, protocols, and finding grants to fund everything. Being able to see all of the work that he had to put into the project also taught me a lot about the responsibilities of being a primary investigator. When I look into the future of wanting to work in research I also want to be like our lab and allow students to be involved because I think it is important to get exposure to research in undergrad because it opens up so many opportunities and new passions for those that get a chance to take part.
Some of the activities that helped me to learn that research is something that I want to continue with after graduation included collecting the data for the project and analyzing the data each week to look for statistical significance. Each week it was exciting to be able to get one step closer to the end goal of our project, and with every collection and evaluation the overall picture would get clearer as the graphs became more complete. Getting to ask questions throughout the process about why the data looked differently than expected I think helped to develop my skills as an intern because questioning why and coming up with potential reasons is an important part of the research process. Even getting the hands on experience of handling the quail at all stages of life, as well as learning how to prepare embryos for bone staining and then analyzing the finished product are useful skills that I am sure I will be able to apply to other situations down the road.
This transformation has been significant to my life because it showed me that I want to be involved in research in my future career. It allowed me to narrow down my options after veterinary school because previously I knew that I was interested in companion animal medicine and research, but I wasn’t completely sure, and I had no idea what careers in research as a veterinarian would look like. It led me to inquire and think about which part of the process I was most interested in and more importantly how I could incorporate companion animals into research. After looking into it and asking my PI and a research veterinarian at Ohio State, I came to the conclusion that working in clinical trial research was a great fit for me. Clinical trial research combined all of the things that I liked about the research process, along with everything I liked in companion animal medicine.
This project showed me my passion for research and discovering new things about animals. Now that I know what I want to do I know that after veterinary school I will enroll in a residency program so that I will be able to work in clinical trials. I also plan to work in academia and this career path will allow me to do so. Getting to read research papers and present on them was also good skill development for working in academia. Our PI also worked in academia so I was able to see how he created a balance between what seemed to be two different jobs packaged into one. This project really cleared up where I see myself in ten years and taught me what I need to accomplish to obtain the career path.

Here is an image of the first egg laid by the quail:

My STEP project involved continuing the development of materials for essential skills (ES), an online supplement to introductory physics courses at Ohio State aimed at addressing student difficulties in learning. Under the guidance of Dr. Andrew Heckler, I developed materials covering topics in basic complex analysis including the identification of complex number components for numbers in both polar and Cartesian form, the conversion of complex numbers between polar and Cartesian forms, and the computation of basic quantities including the phase, modulus, and the complex conjugate. This project is continuing into the fall semester where my advisor and I are focusing on graphical representations of vectors in Euclidean space and products of vectors (both the dot and cross products).

This project has proven extremely transformative for me by providing a research-based perspective into physics education. Solving problems is an essential component of physics, but too often many students lack experience in basic yet necessary skills in elementary mathematics. Accuracy and fluency in these skills will prove invaluable in their careers. I have discovered that I love helping students learn these skills and other ones including interpersonal skills more so than my studies themselves and I would like my career to reflect this.

First and foremost, simply having the opportunity to assist future STEM students in a small way has been extremely motivating and rewarding. Core aspects of my philosophy revolve around helping others and I have found through my experience tutoring and mentoring that I enjoy helping my peers the most. Whether helping my friends study or guiding them through an application for a summer program, I truly love it. I yearn for opportunities like this where I can help others, which is ultimately what I desire the most out of my career.

Second, I was able to expand my network by meeting other like-minded individuals, many of whom provided useful advice. My research advisor Dr. Heckler is an amazing mentor who has taught me so much not only about Physics Education Research (PER) in general, but also his journey from Astronomy into PER, which mirrors my own significantly. Furthermore, I got to work with another student studying PER who left at the end of the summer for graduate school! All in all, it was very informative working with a team highly skilled in helping students.

Finally, by approaching the problem of physics education from a researcher’s perspective, it has given me great insight into how to identify student difficulties in learning and overall development. Given that my career is centered around helping students, having experience with the difficulties of a student from both a student’s point of view and a researcher’s will prove highly advantageous. It was surprisingly hard for me to identify common errors made by students on particular problems when I started, but my ability has improved over time. Adopting this mindset through research has allowed me to think critically from multiple perspectives about many issues, which will no doubt prove useful.

Overall, this experience has proved invaluable in my growth both as a student and as a higher education professional. The whole reason I became so invested in Physics Education Research is due to a recent shift in my career interests. After much thought and consideration, I am interested in becoming an academic advisor or counselor in STEM, preferably in physics or astronomy. Ideally, I want any position that allows me to leverage my network and connect students to various internship and research opportunities within and outside of Ohio State. Although I am still uncertain as to the exact position I am seeking for, this experience has helped narrow my search. Aside from helping cement my interests in higher education, this project has taught me many valuable lessons about how students learn in physics courses, which will also prove beneficial.

My STEP signature project entailed assisting with undergraduate research at the Institute of Behavioral Medicine research. For the duration of the project, I was compiling and analyzing data from behavioral tests, providing input and collecting resources for literature searches, and staying involved in lab communication through active participation in meetings.

Through this project, I understood how detailed research has to be in order to be able to make a real impact, clinically. In addition to behavioral tests, organs and data are collected from mice to parse through the effects of the newly introduced variable. I learned how in-depth hypotheses must be tested in order to hold any validity. Each researcher must be able to explain their results and how that relates back to the main question. Assisting with this project gave me a detailed view of the research process firsthand.

One part of the project that I took part in was gathering additional resources to support the main research question. An example of this would be how chemo changes the gut microbiome and how the gut microbiome changes are responsible for or at least impact some of the side effects of chemo. Some of our data show that chemo (paclitaxel) increases some short-chain fatty acid-producing bacteria. I looked through PubMed and other papers to find data and conclusions that would support this.

Another task that I was assigned was to analyze the data collected from an open field software test. Mice are placed in an open field and their movements are recorded to measure anxiety and locomotion. The software collects more data than is needed for lab purposes, so the correct categories must be chosen and sorted for each mouse. That data can then be analyzed to show a correlation between treatment and behavior.

With COVID-19 restrictions in place, most of the work that was done was remote. I learned how to overcome obstacles in research, such as not being able to participate in bench work. Usually, my responsibilities would include activities such as RNA extractions, rodent handling, tissue collections, and assisting with data collection. This experience showed me that there are many ways to get involved and further the research process, even if not through the conventional route.

This experience was especially valuable to me because it confirmed my interest in research. As I am pursuing my medical degree, I have discovered that I would still like to be involved in the research side of things. This opens up the avenue of a dual MD/Ph.D. degree, which is something that I will be further researching. After speaking to medical students in the lab, I have also learned that there are ways to be involved even as a medical student.

Participating in this summer project also fulfilled a personal goal of mine, which was to be directly involved in medicine that is translational and has the potential to have a real-world impact on breast cancer patients. I know that the conclusions made in the lab will be published and will educate others, furthering work in this field.

STEP Project Reflection

Finn Haughn

8/30/2020

1. This summer, I performed pervious concrete research under my professor, Dr. Lisa Burris. During the first portion of the summer, I gathered data from other researchers to gain knowledge and inspiration for the research. When we were allowed to return to campus in mid-June, I mixed the concrete I had designed and performed a variety of tests on the samples to evaluate the strength, porosity, density, and flow of the concrete.
2. When I began researching, I quickly learned how much work actually went into it. It isn’t just a 9-5 job with mindless activities. It was very much a full-time, intensive responsibility. I assumed otherwise and was proven wrong. There were many times over the summer that I had to come in outside of regular work hours in order to check on samples in the lab or do other small things. Even while not working, my experiments and work were always on my mind. I would be thinking of what to do next and how I could improve.

I also began to appreciate the scientists and researchers who investigate the more important and pressing issues in the world, and how much their work contributes to the world. Currently, that applies heavily to the men and women researchers in the medical field, working to make the world safer in the middle of a global pandemic. Without medicinal and disease research, viruses like COVID-19 would be even more dangerous than they already are. My small work in the lab made me realize how much can actually go into research, even on a small scale, so I now greatly appreciate other researchers.

3. The main understanding that I discovered through my STEP project was not entirely about myself, but more about the world around me. COVID-19 has affected nearly everyone on the planet, everyone in different ways. Civilian life has been turned upside-down. Not being able to do the things we normally can do without thinking twice about has really disturbed society. People in the medical and research fields have possibly been affected the most. Front line health care workers risk infection from COVID patients every day, and researchers are expending countless hours racing to create a vaccine. This work is what I came to understand and appreciate this summer.

Like I stated before, I wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to researching full time. It ended up being a lot more time consuming and difficult than I had imagined. When I think of people researching COVID, it makes my work feel small. These researchers have the pressure of the world waiting on them to make a vaccine that will save hundreds of thousands of lives. After being careful and precise with my experiments in the lab this summer, I could only imagine the delicate work and thought that goes into COVID research, or any ground breaking research in general.

From the first vaccine in 1796, to anesthesia in 1846, to penicillin in 1928, humans have discovered some huge advances in the medical field over time. Without them, it’s possible that many of us wouldn’t be here. Those of us that were here would surely have a lower quality of life. All of these discoveries were products of medical research. My STEP project has given me an utmost respect for researchers and scientists across all fields, and the importance of their findings to human welfare.

4. This transformation is important for my future (potential) plan to attend graduate school. Graduate school is extremely research based, and many programs require prior lab experience. My experience in the lab this summer greatly increases my chances of being accepted into a civil engineering grad program. It has also allowed me to develop a great connection with my PI, Dr. Lisa Burris. I know that in the future if I need help with anything academic, research related, or even personal that Dr. Burris will be a great resource for me.

I want to thank STEP for giving me the opportunity to live in Columbus this summer and cover my living expenses. My experience was great and I learned so much.

Completed concrete cylinders

Concrete curing water

Concrete cylinder molding process

1. Please provide a brief description of your STEP Signature Project. Write two or three sentences describing the main activities your STEP Signature Project entailed.
My STEP Project fell into the research experience project type. For 7 weeks this summer a STEP fellowship allowed me to study embryo transfer success and the impacts of extreme weather on cattle. Due to the circumstances of COVID-19, I was able to conduct my literature review, data processing, and analysis from home under the advising of Dr. Alvaro Garcia Guerra in the Department of Animal Sciences at The Ohio State University.

2. What about your understanding of yourself, your assumptions, or your view of the world changed/transformed while completing your STEP Signature Project? Write one or two paragraphs to describe the change or transformation that took place.
This summer I transformed from a student attempting to learn for the purpose of gaining knowledge into a researcher learning for the purpose of doing my job more effectively. During these few weeks, I was able to take the time to read scientific review articles provided to me and search out a few more to supplement my study and learn more about the subject. My goal in attending college was to accrue as much knowledge as possible, which has now turned into applying that information effectively in a career after I graduate. This signature project allowed me the opportunity to think critically about scientific articles and their relevance to a question I set out to answer. Essentially, I started to learn how to do the job of a career scientist.

3. What events, interactions, relationships, or activities during your STEP Signature Project led to the change/transformation that you discussed in #2, and how did those affect you? Write three or four paragraphs describing the key aspects of your experiences completing your STEP Signature Project that led to this change/transformation.
The global pandemic put a damper on the number of social connections and relationships I was able to develop during this signature project, but through the process of literature review, there were a few authors that kept recurring in most of my readings. It was fascinating to follow the progression of articles from the early 1980s through 2020. I read a living history of ideas, as they were built upon and refuted by authors continuously working to refine conclusions and offer up new questions. Some of the scientists, like Dr. Hansen and Dr. Thatcher, at the University of Florida, I feel as though I got to know very well. Their progression of projects followed my same questions about the impacts of heat stress on fertility. Following from study to study gave me a better idea of what the scientific process is like over the years and in an academic setting.
Since I was completing my research project from home, I had to use the resources available to access data that has already been collected. Dr. Garcia Guerra from the Department of Animal Sciences here at Ohio State has a database that details various animal metrics and the results of embryo transfers that occurred between January of 2014 and December 2016 in Wisconsin. Additionally, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration keeps track of weather data all around the country for use in numerous other agencies like NASA and the National Weather Service. This data is publicly accessible so with the assistance of Dr. Hopkins the Assistant State Climatologist of Wisconsin I accessed this data and combined the two databases to be able to answer questions about the impact of extreme environmental conditions on embryo transfer success. This whole process of data collection and combination into a usable database helped me to understand the value of relationships within the scientific community. I learned that collaborating with peers helps to raise the quality and capabilities of everyone involved. This project would not have been possible without access to the data Dr. Garcia Guerra collected, nor would it have been possible without access to the weather data, and finally none of this would have happened without someone there to bring it all together.
Finally, what this project has taught me about the scientific process if that it never stops, nor is there ever a finite endpoint. With the beginning of school coming around new projects have started so my time working on this signature project culminated with a presentation of my experimental design and defense of my hypotheses in a lab meeting. I received many valuable critiques and suggestions for future studies. It was an incredibly valuable experience and each step of the way I learned how ideas can change and morph as new information is acquired. It is important to always keep this in mind as an investigator. Never assume the end is really the end. The more you know the less you know, and this is the direction I will take after this project. I don’t have any solid answers yet, but I have lots of new questions.

4. Why is this change/transformation significant or valuable for your life? Write one or two paragraphs discussing why this change or development matters and/or relates to your academic, personal, and/or professional goals and future plans.

My professional goals are to work as a researcher for an institution guided towards improving reproductive medicine in human and animal species. This project allowed me one of my first opportunities to do real research work that contributes to that goal. It will be important to have as many of these experiences as possible when applying for jobs in the future. Knowing now the perspective of a researcher my final year at Ohio State will include coursework geared towards improving myself as an investigator rather than just receiving a passing grade.

My STEP Signature Project was an opportunity to partner with an OSU staff member to conduct undergraduate research in the Political Science department. I assisted Professor Inés Valdez by doing primary and secondary research on indenture programs in the British Empire and other racial labor programs that forced immigration in the 1800s and 1900s—my reports on these readings served as contributions to Professor Valdez’s manuscript project.

My original project goals of transformation, stated in my STEP proposal, have been carried out during this past year of my STEP project. Plus, what was originally my project—undergraduate research—soon blossomed into more opportunities in the field I am interested in. From start to finish of this project, I saw myself transform in my ability to think like a scholar in my research, but also adapt to new tasks and challenges. First, I took on 10 hours of research a week on top of my already full course load, both in Autumn 2019 and Spring 2020; this was an academic stretch, but it taught me so much about how to prioritize assignments and how to focus on the areas of academia that I cared about. I also learned more about what I want my future to look like and how I want to pursue graduate school in this area of study.

Obviously, in my research, my view of the world (in terms of human rights, labor, and colonialism) changed drastically. I read tens of books and hundreds of pages of primary sources about indentured servitude and forced labor programs in the British Empire, but also in regards to the United States and Mexico. I learned so much about how modern immigration has greatly stemmed from cheap labor schemes. I’ve always been interested in human rights and racial ideology, so this project delved into how racial underpinnings contributed to forced labor and immigration, which challenges traditional conceptions of human rights.

A major actor in my transformation was Inés Valdez, the professor who I was conducting research for. Before this project, I had her as a professor for a class called Introduction to Human Rights, and the whole semester I admired her knowledge and expertise in scholarship that I was super interested in. Being her research assistant gave me access to see more of her genius and responsibilities as a professor and researcher at OSU. I had many in-person meetings with Inés to discuss the research process and her vision for the book that would be compiled from all of the research. But further, we were able to have personal conversations about academic and career goals, and I learned so much hearing about how her life has played out—and it gave me hope for my future in academia. Inés also had a get together at her house (before the coronavirus outbreak) with a few of her research and administrative assistants. This event was welcoming and personal, and provided massive comfort being able to talk to students in a similar position as me, while being encouraged and cared for by a professor whom I admired a lot! Ultimately, I feel that I garnered a healthy professional relationship with Professor Valdez, but also enjoyed a personal mentorship.

As I mentioned before, this research position stemmed into more opportunities; shortly after I started doing research for Professor Valdez, she had a TA drop from their position. So, in an effort to find one before the semester started, she offered the teaching assistant position to me for the undergraduate class called Introduction to Human Rights. Though I was adding this position on to my heavy course load and research, I knew that it would be worth the experience! My tasks included grading homework and papers for 60 students, responding to student emails, keeping track of attendance, and even proctoring exams and being the sole instructor for a class that Professor Inés was out of town for. Though sometimes I was overwhelmed or challenged by my position as a TA, I learned about how to be independent, professional, and confident—even though I was about the same age as most of the students in the class.

Also, during the Spring 2020 semester, once my teaching assistantship was over, Professor Valdez offered me a position as an administrative assistant, to help with her tasks as the Director of Latino/a Studies. Some of the tasks were pretty menial, like saving receipts for purchases within the political science department, or capturing pdfs of certain readings that Professor Valdez needed in a database—but I still felt fulfilled knowing that I was clearing Inés’ workload so she could focus on more important tasks. Yet I was also tasked with making itineraries for visiting scholars who were to give seminars and workshops at OSU—I scheduled hotel and dinner reservations and meetings between the visitors and OSU scholars. I was even responsible for designing and distributing posters of the Racial Capitalism events that were to happen on campus (photos attached below). Because I had email correspondence with the visiting scholars, I would have been able to meet them at the seminars and make connections with scholars in political science at the University of Chicago, but unfortunately the events were planned for March 26^th and 27^th 2020, which was at the height of coronavirus shutdowns, and the first week that OSU cancelled in-person classes and events.

This work displayed how Professor Valdez trusted my foresight, along with planning and communication skills. Although the events that I planned didn’t come to fruition, I gained a lot of experience in professional administrative work and also made connections with scholars outside of just the professor that I did research for. Because I showed interest in racial capitalism (and in general, Inés’ research focus), she offered for me to take her Racial Capitalism graduate seminar, even though it is not traditionally open to undergraduate students. I think this shows how my work as a research assistant grew me intellectually and even Professor Valdez could see my growth as an undergraduate student and my fascination with labor and racial capitalism.

Ultimately, the opportunity to complete undergraduate research in a field that captivates me unlocked my interest to continue in the world of academia—primarily making me seriously consider a PhD in Political Science. This was a huge shift from before I started the STEP project, as I was an English major that was mainly intrigued in rhetoric and racial narratives—and I wasn’t aware that I could branch into political science while being an English major. Currently, I am a graduate of OSU with a major in English and a minor in Human Rights, yet I plan to apply to graduate school next year, and start attendance in a Political Science program in 2022 where I can focus in some degree on racial capitalism. Before my undergraduate research, I was really unsure of what I wanted my future to look like, and although I knew I loved school, I wasn’t sure what type of degree I would pursue after graduation. My research, and all the other work I helped Professor Valdez with, assured me of the area of academia that I loved, and it also showed me what being a professor/scholar looked like. And although I’m not sure exactly what my future career goals are, I would definitely consider going into collegiate education after more schooling—I probably wouldn’t have felt this way if I hadn’t had the chance to grow personally and academically through my work STEP undergraduate research work for Professor Valdez.

march 26 poster_pdf

march 27 poster_pdf