10/15/2019 Susan McKenna
It takes a lot of organizing and coordinating behind the scenes to conduct summer research programs for high school and college students, and Bioengineering thanks the faculty, staff and current students who make it happen.
Written by Susan McKenna
People often think that universities slow down right after commencement and get busy again as students return in August. But the summer months are full of activity, especially in the valuable experiences offered through summer research programs.
High school students considering a college program or undergraduates contemplating graduate school choices come to campus to gain a competitive edge in their application materials and help make career decisions while learning and conducting research in these programs.
Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is one of many departments that offer these immersive summer opportunities to Champaign-Urbana high school students from historically marginalized backgrounds and college students from across the country. Among the 2019 summer programs supported by the Department of Bioengineering and The Grainger College of Engineering were:
- Sparking High Schoolers’ Excitement for Research in Engineering and Science (SpHERES), a Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering (WYSE) program (a collaboration among Bioengineering, The Grainger College of Engineering, Carle Illinois College of Medicine, and the National Science Foundation);
- Discover Bioengineering summer camp, also a WYSE program; and
- National Science Foundation-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), Frontiers in Biomedical Imaging.
Students accepted into these programs live on or commute to campus for anywhere from one to 10 weeks (depending on the program). They learn to practice safe lab conduct, participate in ongoing research, prepare posters and present research, develop professional communications skills, discover details of working in bioengineering-related disciplines, and are guided and advised by faculty/ researchers and current graduate students. High school students also participate in additional programming focused on college readiness and preparation. All of these activities are aimed at helping the students solidify their future plans.
Conducting these programs requires the dedication, coordination and guidance of faculty, staff and current students, who devote time and assistance to developing activities and working directly with the participating students. These efforts are especially rewarding when a connection made during a summer research program leads to students applying to the Bioengineering program at Illinois, or fostering a working relationship with a lifelong mentor, or discovering just the right educational and career fit.
The Department of Bioengineering recognizes and extends a grateful “thank-you” to the following Bioengineering students, faculty and staff at Illinois who provided support to 2019 summer participants in the WYSE and REU programs:
- Discover Bioengineering: Vignesh Alla, Kurt Kostan, Eileen Johnson, Carlos Renteria, and Noah Schmid, led by Teaching Assistant Prof. Karin Jensen and Yanfen Li, 2018 Ph.D. graduate in Bioengineering at Illinois;
- SpHERES: Aidan Brougham-Cook and Ishita Jain, led by Associate Prof. Greg Underhill; Jamila Hedhli and Denise Medina Almora, led by Associate Prof. Wawosz Dobrucki; Indrajit Srivastava and Ketan Dighe, led by Prof. Dipanjan Pan; Prof. Manuel Hernandez and Liran Ziegelman; and Co-coordinators Krista Smith and Dot Gordon;
- REU: Michael Gapinske, Phuong Le, Jorge Maldonado, Denise Medina Almora, Anirudh Mittal, Ghazal Naseri Kouzehgarani, Miles Norsworthy, Janet Sorrells, Indrajit Srivastava, Chi Zhang, Mingxiao Zhang, and Yang Zhu, graduate mentors; and Catherine Best, Rohit Bhargava, Steve Boppart, Wawosz Dobrucki, Martha Gillette, Mike Insana, Marina Marjanovic (co-lead), Dipanjan Pan, Pablo Perez-Pinera, Andrew Smith (co-lead), and Brad Sutton, faculty mentors.