Rachel Myers was simply 3 years outdated when her mom was recognized with breast most cancers. Already a science-minded child, watching her mother’s resilience within the face of the invasive remedies made her intimately accustomed to the signs and unwanted effects of most cancers therapy. Throughout a highschool internship on the Nationwide Institutes of Well being she fell in love with biomedicine — “I noticed people who appeared like me within the area, which wasn’t one thing I used to be used to earlier than” — and determined to observe her private reference to science right into a profession.
Now a junior at College of Maryland Baltimore County majoring in chemical engineering, Myers is considered one of seven undergraduates from round the US to take part within the new Supplies Initiative for Complete Analysis Alternative (MICRO) program, a totally distant, on-line analysis internship from the Division of Supplies Science and Engineering (DMSE). Myers’ analysis pursuits are targeted on utilizing nanoparticles as drug supply therapeutics for breast most cancers and different power illnesses, and the MICRO program provided an unprecedented alternative to entry experience, mentorship, and approaches to biomedicine that may in any other case have stayed out of attain for undergraduates.
The very best of on-line studying and analysis
The MICRO internship program launched this previous September, funded by a Increased Training Innovation grant from the Abdul Latif Jameel World Training Lab (J-WEL) and orchestrated by DMSE graduate college students Cécile Chazot and Max L’Etoile, Digital Studying Lab scientist Jessica Sandland, and professors Alfredo Alexander-Katz and Christine Ortiz. MICRO goals to supply alternatives to a broader, extra various inhabitants of proficient undergraduate college students at non-MIT establishments who’re contemplating graduate college or a profession in a research-related area. Designed from the bottom up as a web based program, MICRO drew on experience from the MITx Digital Studying Lab in addition to crucial classes from the shift to distant studying through the pandemic.
“The distant nature of this system removes one potential barrier to entry — college students can take part even when they’re unable to spend a semester at MIT. A distant program additionally permits college students to take part for consecutive semesters, giving them larger continuity of their analysis,” says Jessica Sandland PhD ’05, who’s a lecturer in DMSE and works with school to create programs for MITx and incorporate blended and digital applied sciences into the classroom.
One semester into her internship, Myers has discovered the net program each rigorous and uniquely rewarding. The internship has two parts: analysis — working straight with MIT school, and training — normal assignments to provide the scholars a stable understanding of supplies science as a area.
Myers is working with Joelle Straehla in Professor Paula Hammond’s lab to make use of nanoPRISM to determine the genomic determinants of nanoparticle trafficking in cells. “The largest problem comes right down to studying new methods in my lab, being uncovered to new coding languages I haven’t discovered earlier than. As a result of I don’t have a supplies science program at house, pondering like a supplies scientist has been a brand new problem for me,” she says.
“Rachel has exceeded my expectations and having her as a distant mentee has been a constructive expertise for us each,” says Straehla. “I’m wanting ahead to persevering with to help Rachel on her journey as she applies to graduate colleges.”
The interns are restricted to collaborating in analysis that they’ll do remotely, corresponding to simulations, information evaluation, and computational modeling. This system group put numerous effort into designing assignments, workflows, and experiences that capitalized on the net format, somewhat than working round it.
“It was well-designed for a web based group. The MICRO employees labored with the researchers earlier than assigning us to ensure the work could be significant. It felt very strategic, and never as if it was made up or like a backup plan,” says Myers. “My work is only computational, however another college students had moist lab parts that they collaborated on of their house colleges. I did numerous information evaluation, nevertheless it nonetheless appears like I’m making very central and important contributions via my work.”
The training format is fastidiously structured, with weekly video lectures on supplies science and engineering from MIT school, incorporating written reflections and group discussion board discussions. Different assignments foster science communications expertise, corresponding to writing literature opinions and analysis proposals, a writing workshop, and a last presentation on the finish of the semester.
In fact, there are just a few additional touches to drive house the MIT expertise: “Whereas watching a lecture by Professor Jeffrey Grossman, we acquired goody baggage from the MICRO group. Professor Grossman does numerous interactive work together with his college students, so the MICRO employees despatched us supplies to construct unit cells and do different workout routines, which made an already profound expertise all of the extra enjoyable and interesting.”
PhD pupil Cécile Chazot additionally shepherded the interns via the method of submitting abstracts and creating posters for a analysis convention. “Her suggestions was actually useful, as a result of it was my first time presenting my very own analysis at a nationwide convention,” says Myers, who gained the Excellent Presentation Award at ABRCMS, the Annual Biomedical Analysis Convention for Minority College students.
A conscious method to mentorship
Crucial a part of making MICRO work as a web based internship is fostering real relationships between the interns and their mentors. Grad college students Chazot and L’Etoile have been an vital supply of help and recommendation, serving as skilled mentors, serving to navigate the graduate admissions course of, and offering recommendation on fellowship functions along with main assignments and discussions.
Chazot additionally developed a wide-ranging set of mentor/mentee coaching worksheets. These coated a variety of matters, from planning a great distant analysis mission to speaking in an efficient and inclusive method whereas working remotely. Based mostly on the present analysis on greatest practices in on-line studying, range and inclusion, and extra, the trainings provided in-depth insights on mitigating stereotype menace, situational cues, solo standing and underrepresentation, and cognitive load. Every coaching highlighted particular objectives, examples, and framing with the purpose of enhancing belief, consolation, and efficiency from each mentors and interns.
“My favourite a part of this system has been the relationships that we’ve been capable of construct with the MICRO school and our mentors in a web based setting. It was actually well-planned, and it gave us the boldness we wanted to progress as scientists,” says Myers. “Loads of us haven’t had as intensive an expertise in school as we wished to due to Covid, and this program has actually helped us overcome that. They have been actually intentional about instilling confidence in us.”
This give attention to mentorship additionally speaks to MICRO’s broader mission of creating the sector of supplies science extra accessible, extra inclusive, and extra populated by individuals who maintain mentorship and inclusion as major objectives.
This purpose hits a chord with Myers, who desires to carry as many younger folks as potential — particularly college students of shade — into the science area. “I wish to present them what analysis actually appears like and the way thrilling it may be, and get them into it and assist them see themselves in it,” she says. “As I become older I’d prefer to be a principal investigator and science communicator. My ambition has been strengthened all through the pandemic by seeing folks in my group, the African American group, struggling a lot with the science of what’s happening, particularly since we’ve been omitted traditionally.”
Growing demand for on-line alternatives
MICRO’s first group of undergraduate researchers completed their first semester in December, and 6 of the seven interns, together with Myers, are persevering with at the very least via the spring semester. DMSE hopes to proceed to run and develop this system.
“Although MICRO is barely in its first 12 months, we have been capable of settle for fewer than 10 % of the candidates to this system,” says Sandland, noting that there’s clearly an urge for food for MIT-caliber, online-based analysis alternatives.
“I believe that the pandemic taught us that there are numerous issues that we will do efficiently on-line that we by no means used to consider doing on-line,” she says. “Definitely, there are limitations to the varieties of analysis a pupil can do remotely, however we discovered that there actually are numerous ways in which a pupil could make a significant contribution to the analysis happening at MIT, even when they’ll’t bodily be within the laboratory.”