Research Assistant

March 17, 2017

Back in late October, I was invited to attend the mGluR’s (Midwest/Greatlakes Undergranduate Research Symposium) neuroscience conference being hosted at Ohio State. Components of the symposium included sessions of poster presentations as well as three verbal presentations of undergraduate research given to a live audience. One such presenter was Sydney Atkins who is a graduating senior in Dr. Obrietan’s lab at Ohio State. She gave a fantastic presentation on her research of the CREB gene and its role in circadian rhythm dependent learning, and afterwards, I approached her to further discuss her research and ask about the lab she worked in. After she explained her research, I decided to email Dr. Obrietan and ask about applying for a position in his lab and was welcomed to join as an undergraduate research assistant.

I began working in the lab at the start of the second semester, working closely with a senior undergraduate student, Ashley, and a graduate student, Kaitlin Snider. In the ensuing months, I have learned a variety of lab techniques including running PCR’s, digesting and purifying DNA, running gel electrophoresis, and handeling lab mice. I thoroughly enjoy lab work, and have been truly excited to learn about the research that takes place in the lab. There are a number of projects being conducted by everyone from the PI to graduate students to the undergraduate assistants. The work mainly explores genes that link biological clocks in the brain to patterns in learning and memory through bio rhythms and gene expression. I currently work on a number of these projects, mainly assisting in genotyping the transgenic mice.

Unfortunately, in early February, I broke my right hand and have been unable to as much as put a glove on since. Rather than making me take a hiatus, the graduate student I work with offered me a research project for which I could write a grant while my hand was healing. The research project involves the study of the CREB gene and its influence on which neurons are selected in memory formation. The project will involve a fear paradigm and immunohistochemistry to identify the neurons that fire and their genetic expression. While I can’t apply for the grant until fall of 2017, I have been able to focus my efforts on writing it and designing my project while waiting for my hand to heal.

It is now nearing the end of spring break, and, upon returning to school, I shall finally have full use of my right hand. I will be able to return to my normal work in the lab while continuing to work on writing my grant, and I am more than excited to be back doing what I love.

Year in Review

[ “Year in Review”  is where you should reflect on the past year and show how you have evolved as a person and as a student.  You may want to focus on your growth in a particular area (as a leader, scholar, researcher, etc.) or you may want to talk about your overall experience over the past year.  For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

G.O.A.L.S.

It’s true that college is about finding yourself, but to do that most efficiently, one must have a good sense of direction.  By setting goals to diversify myself in specific ways, I am determined to come out of college with the most comprehensive experience in all five of these realms of growth.

Global Awareness:

Coming from a small, homogenous town in Pennsylvania, I have been incredibly frustrated with the lack of diversity I could experience.  Everyone was white, rural, and republican.  I am incredibly relieved to find myself in such a diverse culture, surrounded by people of all sorts of ideals and backgrounds.  To make the most of this opportunity, I intend on seeking out conversation with those who differ from me and offering discussion on topics that will expand my understanding of different world views.  In my classes, I personally prefer to orient my general education requirements around global culture rather than American culture, so I will choose my classes carefully to give me in depth access to communities I might never have known existed.  Additionally, if it fits into my schedule, I hope to study abroad.  I would love to visit Eastern Europe, Germany, or South East Asia, and I hope my studies lead me to experience this world from as many perspectives as possible.

 

Original Inquiry:

I am one of the few neuroscience majors who is not pre-med.  It is my intent to go to grad school and to spend my life researching and learning about the brain.  Because of this, I want to be as involved as possible in research on campus as I can.  Starting my second semester freshman year, I hope to work in a lab and eventually conduct my own research.  Being a freshman and not yet having a complete understanding in what type of research I may participate in, I do not yet know what, specifically, I would like to study.  All of this being said, I don’t believe that inquiry is isolated to research just as global awareness isn’t only possible through studying abroad.  I believe I can find areas of inquiry in all of my classes, and I hope to gain an understanding of the material beyond the basics taught.  I am here to learn, and to learn, one must ask questions, so I will be constantly exploring beneath the surface information in all areas of study.

 

Academic Enrichment:

This goal is most often misconstrued to mean getting the highest GPA possible.  To be honest, if you are truly dedicating the necessary time, you should leave with a pretty high GPA, but I don’t believe that is the purpose of this goal.  To me, academic enrichment means challenging oneself.  Academic enrichment is placing yourself in a position where achieving a high grade is a struggle and you must change the very way they think in order to truly understand the information.  To accomplish this end, I intend on taking challenging classes, and I’m prepared to struggle and potentially not even to do well.  But I am not afraid.  I see it both as a challenge , and I am prepared to meet it.

 

Leadership Development:

For some people, leadership comes easily.  They simply voice their opinions and offer suggestions, and in the end, people turn to them for guidance and support.  I know plenty of people like this, and it’s something I tend to experience myself, but this position of respect does not truly define leadership.  A leader is not just one who commands the attention and respect of her pears, but someone who does so and demonstrates grace, compassion, ingenuity, and a strong objective along the way.  I intend on expanding beyond the basic position of leadership in whatever groups I find myself in.  Not by taking over the group and grappling for power and control, but by offering my voice when it is silent, offering my hand when it is needed, and offering my time and commitment to go above and beyond even when it is not necessary.

 

Service Engagement:

There is a quote, one I found on Pinterest of course, that says knowledge should not be coveted.  If you are in possession of knowledge, you are responsible for sharing it with the world.  In this way, I believe if you are in good health and in possession of the opportunity to improve someone’s life, it is your responsibility to share your time and energy with those in need.  I intend to make use of the many opportunities offed by Pay It Forward and to seek out opportunities through other organizations with which I am affiliated such as Nu Rho Psi and offer myself for service.

A List of Accomplishments

Community Commitment Day

August 27th, 2016

It’s the end of my first week at the Ohio State University, and I have had my first leadership opportunity.  Today I was a peer leader for Ohio State’s Community Commitment Day.  I managed a group of about twenty students, and we went to the Tuttle Recreation Center to assist in grounds maintenance.  The state has cut back on the budget for community grounds maintenance, so our group assisted the community in trimming hedges, weeding their garden, and cleaning the playground.  It was a valuable experience in learning how to keep people enthused even when they may not enjoy what they are doing.  It also reminded me that even though so much about my life has changed, I am still the natural leader I was at home, and I am still capable of benefiting the community, not solely through my own work, but also through helping others to do the same.

 

Social Chair of the Ohio State Art Club

October 10th, 2016

As of the third meeting of art club, I was appointed the position of social chair, meaning I am responsible for managing the social media of art club and advertising our club.  The art club currently is relatively small with few followers, and throughout these next few years, I am excited to implement some new ideas to grow the club and bring art to more students at Ohio State.  I think that people often think that if they are not majoring in art, they are not talented enough to join an art club, but at a school of this size, there must be a huge community of doodlers and people who appreciate art and enjoy using it to relax and escape from their every day concerns.  Through social media and advertising, I would like to grow the community and extend a hand to those who want to incorporate art in their lives without committing to a minor or major in it.  Additionally, as I spend more time on the board, I would like to expand the program to include events that involve more diverse mediums as well as ways to showcase students’ works.  I am excited to take on this responsibility, and I hope to see some great changes over the next few years.artclubprofile

Artifacts

Please feel free to scroll through!  Each photo has a bold caption that summarizes the idea I am trying to portray, and if you come across anything interesting, feel free to read the unbolded text under each picture for more details about me and what I love.

 

I love TED talks and I identify with their mission of bringing interesting ideas together and sharing them.

I am an avid podcast listener.  I listen to mainly the NPR sponsored shows such as Hidden Brain, This American Life, and Invisibilia as well as some independent podcasts such as the You Are Not So Smart podcast and Malcolm Gladwell’s Podcast Revisionist History, but my favorite by far is the TED Radio hour.

 

My mother has taught me to push myself to my greatest potential and to never doubt what I am capable of.

img_6479This is my mother and I standing at the top of Jupiter Bowl in Park City, Utah.  I love to ski, but this was the scariest moment of my life.  We hiked from the lift a half mile to the highest point of the resort.  My legs were shaking with absolute terror and I told my mother that I couldn’t do it, and she told me to take a breath and jump.  And I did.  It was the most valuable experience of my life, because I recognized my fear and skied it anyway.  The satisfaction of reaching the bottom was unparalleled.  I have my mother to thank for teaching me that discomfort should never get in the way of being the person you want to be or doing what you want to do and for always believing in me.

 

I keep a retrospective calendar of everything I do to remind myself of the potential in each day and the value in each memory.

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For the past five years, I have kept a retrospective calendar.  I keep a prospective calendar as well for managing my time and work, but my retrospective calendar acts a journal for all the things I actually ended up doing.  Plans change so often, and the future isn’t easy to predict.  I like to keep track of my life because I believe every day has value, and I believe that every person I am as I grow throughout my life has value.  All of this gets recorded in these pages along with countless doodles and sketches.  I hope to live a life that’s worth remembering.  I hope to fill every day to bursting with friends and projects and to be honest for the most part homework.  But whatever I do, I don’t want a day to go to waste.

 

I am in neuroscience because it is a developing, interdisciplinary field with endless opportunity for discovery.

 When I started looking into what I wanted to do with my future, I had no clue.  I was interested in everything.  I loved calculus and chemistry and biology and literature and photography and basically everything appealed to me.  I didn’t know how to choose one subject of study or one career path.  Originally, I thought I was going to be an engineer.  Both my parents are engineers, I like problem solving, and it’s a very practical field to enter into.  Being set on this course of action, I was taken by surprise when I read this book, The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons by Sam Kean.  Not only was I fascinated by the material and the stories of how the science of the brain has developed over the past three hundred years or so, but I began to realize that this was an interdisciplinary field.  This was a field that brought together multiple realms of science and the humanities to answer potentially the most relevant questions to all areas of our lives.  How do we think?  Where do emotions come from?  What is love?  How do our perceptions of the world differ from what is actually there? And perhaps most importantly: Why does the mind fail, and how do we prevent it from breaking down?  I am passionate about learning.  I am here in college in search of discovery.  I am here to ask questions.  I am not here to get good test scores or to build a perfect application.  Yes, those things are important, but there is a difference between having all of the right answer and having all of the right questions.  It is my goal while I am here to learn as much as I can from all disciplines within and outside of the world of neuroscience and to ask the questions that will change the way we see the human brain and its malfunctions.

 

The last part, “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,” is the most eloquent expression of my self ordained purpose.

There is so much more to say about myself, but I think the final thing I want to include for now is this quote from the poem “Ulysses.”  I love literature and I love poetry, both reading it and writing it, and this is my favorite quote from a poem.  It’s a rather odd quote for a teenager to relate to I guess, but I have found that this is the humanity I want to believe in.  This is the human I want to be.  I will face challenges.  I will feel like I am falling apart.  I will not lose sight of all this world has to offer if we simply have the courage to seek it.

 

Nice to Meet You

My name is Bryce Elizabeth Yahn and I never expected to be a Buckeye. I hail from Erie Pennsylvania and a Penn State legacy so my decision to come to OSU was a bit of a shock. The reason I have found myself clothed in scarlet and grey is that I am pursuing a research career in the field of neuroscience. In high school I found it difficult to set my sights on a career or major because I thoroughly enjoyed all of my classes and no more wanted to turn away from the liberal arts than I did from math, biology, and chemistry. When I found how interdisciplinary neuroscience was, I knew that this was a cause I could set my heart on. In addition, a career of life long learning as a researcher peaked my interest, and I have not questioned my career goals since.

IMG_7314My diverse interests led me to neuroscience, and they also led me to the variety of hobbies and extracurriculars in which I partake. I express myself in the arts through painting and playing piano, and in the athletic realm you can find me running track, playing soccer, swimming, or skiing depending on the season. Aside from performing well in academics, my main goal in the following years at The Ohio State University is to expose myself to new ideas, try new activities, and unearth new passions. I might not have expected to be a buckeye, but I am prepared to immerse myself in it and to take advantage of every second of my time here.