Michael Santoroski

Over the summer of 2015, Maya Shende, a senior at Roanoke College, decided to do a Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) at UC Davis in Davis, California. She worked in Justin Siegel’s lab in the Genome and Biomedical Sciences Center along with eight other undergraduates.

Maya participated in a ten week program that involved time in North Carolina, California, and Washington. During her first week, Maya went to Raleigh, North Carolina to learn about the Rosetta codebase, a molecular biology/chemistry codebase. Most of her time in the program, however, was spent at UC Davis working on her research project.

“My project involved protein-protein and protein-small molecule interfaces. I was looking at the contacts made between two docked proteins or a protein docked with a small molecule, to see if there was a way to quantify the number of contacts in order to further understanding of protein-protein and protein-small molecule interactions. All of this work was done computationally and all of the docking simulations were run using the Rosetta code.”

For the last week of the REU, Maya went to Seattle, Washington, where she and eight other undergraduates presented their research. One of Maya’s favorite parts of the summer was the conference in Seattle.

“RosettaCon was one of the coolest conferences I have ever been to. First, I was essentially surrounded by celebrities in the world of computational molecular biology and computational chemistry. I spent a week having intellectual conversations with some of the forerunners of the field and learning so much every day. Second, presenting my work to such esteemed scholars in the field was a great experience. Not only did I get an opportunity to better my presentation skills, but I also got great feedback about different routes I could take with my research.”

Maya’s advice to anyone interested in research is to start early.

“The more research you do as an undergraduate, the more you learn and more competitive you will be after graduating. Research is also a great way to learn things that you can’t learn in a classroom environment. It is a way to explore topics that are interesting to you, and apply what you learn in your classes to coming up with solutions to real problems!”

In April 2015, Lydia Delamatta, a recent Roanoke College graduate went to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Cheney, Washington. Lydia worked with the Public Affairs department on her project titled “Discrimination Stops Here: How Education Affects Gender Political Equality Across Democratic Nations”. Lydia became involved in research after meeting Dr. O’Keef at a professional development panel organized by the Public Affairs Society. The two then worked together on their project.
Lydia enjoyed her time working with Dr. O’Keef:

“Working one on one with a professor is honestly the best way to learn, and when working with Dr. O’Keef, you feel like your research matters. Working one on one, I was able to ask all the questions I needed to as well as develop a professional relationship. Dr. O’Keef, along with all of the Public Affairs professors, truly bend over backwards to help us cultivate our skills and thoughts, and to perfect our projects, and independent study projects help you recognize their dedication.”

When we asked what Lydia’s favorite part of the conference was she had a hard time choosing one but ultimately decided that presentation day was the best:

“Overall, in the span of only a few hours, I had made two professional connections, both because of the work I had put in with Dr. O’Keef in developing this quantitative research project. I was able to represent myself and Roanoke College at this conference, and I would like to think that on that day I honored both.”

To anyone who hasn’t done research or is thinking about it, Lydia says:

“Definitely get involved in the Undergraduate Research program at Roanoke College and Summer Scholars, and get involved with a professor you would like to work with and ask for their mentorship with a research project. If you have a great work ethic and you ask one of your professors about an undergraduate research project they will help you, either by mentoring you, or finding you the best professor for your topic. Seriously they really will.”

Pictured above from left to right: Alex Kramer, Ben Walker, Seth Fortmann, and Rebecca Hudon

Roanoke College students Alex Kramer, Ben Walker, Seth Fortmann, and Rebecca Hudon traveled to Snowbird, Utah in mid-July of 2015. They attended the 74th Annual Meeting for the Society for Developmental Biology to present their research. Seth recently graduated from Roanoke College and works at Johns Hopkins University. Three current students, Ben, Alex, and Rebecca, were interviewed about their research experience.

Ben’s research topic was investigating the effects of atrazine on embryonic zebrafish development. He decided to do this research after finishing a similar study on estrogen. Ben won the award for Best Undergraduate Presentation, Honorable Mention and was one of only four undergraduate students to win an award at the conference.

Rebecca’s topic was assessing estrogenic pollution in the Roanoke River using embryonic zebrafish as a bioindicator. She decided on this topic because of her previous experience on the topic during her work in the lab and looks forward to her future endeavors.

Alex’s research topic is about aquatic toxicity of a dental sealant compound. He chose that topic because of its relevance to public health and the large impact it can cause on the industry.

When asked about how it is to work one on one with a professor, Alex said:

“I really enjoy working with Dr. Lassiter because [of] how accessible he is. Whenever I get to a new stage in my research, Dr. Lassiter has always been very helpful in explaining what I need to do next. After we decide what to do next, I am actually running the experiments and am collecting data on my own and at my own pace. Once the data has been finished being collected, we will meet together to analyze and interpret the results together”

Rebecca stated that her favorite part about presenting her research was the feedback she got from other researchers.

“While talking about my research with others I was often given advice about procedures and asked questions that I had not previously considered. These interactions have helped to shape the future of my project.”

Ben’s advice to any students who haven’t gotten involved in research is to find a field that interests you and approach any faculty who performs research that may interest you.

“Being able to use knowledge you learn from the classroom to make an impact, no matter how big, on your specific field is an extremely rewarding process.”

In March of 2015, Hayley Field, now a graduate from Roanoke College, presented her research at the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hayley was involved with the sociology department and travelled with fellow Roanoke College student Mariana Araujo, graduate student Stephanie Floyd, and Dr. Chad Morris.

Hayley decided to pursue research in her topic after her research methods class with Dr. Anderson.

“I chose the topic of refugees out of my interest in other cultures and thinking about how difficult and incomprehensible their lives are to individuals like myself, who have never had to worry about being persecuted for reasons such as race or religion. I wanted to create a study that looked more into their lives in order to learn more about the challenges they face. I wanted to ameliorate the many hardships they go through in any way possible by finding ways to help them feel better adapted and welcomed in their new host country. I then decided to apply for Summer Scholars so that I could actually carry out my proposal and the project expanded from there, after discussing it and making it more feasible with Dr. Mehrotra.”

Hayley enjoyed working with a professor one on one:

“It is a great way to form relationships with professors and allows you to learn on a much deeper and more personal level. These experiences really pushed me to work harder and gave me very valuable lessons that I would have never had without having such dedicated professors that were willing to guide me through the process of conducting my own research study.”

Hayley’s favorite part about the conference was learning about all the different research that anthropologists are doing around the world:

“I especially enjoyed going to the sessions that had to do with refugee and immigrant populations because it was a really neat feeling to be able to apply my research to other researchers’ work and find similarities between mine and their findings.”

For anyone interested in research, Hayley says:

“It isn’t that common that so many students are able to do their own research and work one on one with their professors, so it is definitely worth it to find something that you would enjoy doing, such as internships, independent studies, or summer scholars. It helps you get connected with professors and individuals in the community, and it also gives you a great advantage when applying to graduate school or jobs by having had such great experience in your undergraduate years.”