Throughout this research experience in Tulane’s Biomechanics of Growth and Remodeling Laboratory, I have been keeping in mind my goals for the experience so that I can be sure I get the most out of my time here this summer. To re-cap, my goals were to learn to properly navigate a mentor-mentee relationship, to gain experience working and communicating with my peers, to advance my technical skills in the laboratory, to increase my scientific writing abilities, and to become familiar with laboratory protocols. Although I am only halfway through my internship, I have made significant progress on my set goals and I am very satisfied with the immense amount I have learned in this short period of time.
My principal investigator and I have bi-weekly meetings in order to assess my progress throughout my internship. This has helped me to monitor my growth as well as learn to build a strong mentor-mentee relationship. I am extremely lucky to have a PI who makes herself so available to me and it has really made my experience a great one. The graduate and other undergraduate students working in the lab with me have also been a joy to work with. Our lab is very close and collaborative taking time to partake in bonding activities like monthly lab lunches and book clubs. I do not think I would be learning as much as I am if it weren’t for the helpful nature of my peers. Their willingness to help has allowed me to work on my goal of gaining experience with collaborative work to an extent even I didn’t expect. These good peer relationships have also allowed me to really flesh out my technical skills. I have been available to assist and learn from my peers in many experiments on a one-on-one in depth level so that I truly feel comfortable performing them on my own now. The highly collaborative environment of the laboratory has also given me the opportunity to assist in writing and editing a scientific grant. Grant writing is a key aspect of any research career and being able to advance my scientific writing abilities by assisting with one is an invaluable experience. With all of the neat experiments I have been getting to do with the great personnel here, I already feel very comfortable with lab protocol. Before I began working I had to be certified on lab protocols, and I learned a lot from that, but having hands on experience is really helping me progress with my goal of becoming comfortable with scientific protocols.
I am currently working on a project that has allowed my to advance my technical skills quite a lot and serve as a leader of a project. As part of my overall project of writing a protocol for quantifying collagen alignment, I have been working on testing a software which would allow the lab to perform these quantifications automatically, saving a lot of time and resources. I am currently working towards testing this software with maurine tendons, and in order to get these I have had the opportunity to dissect them from mice. Dissection experience is an amazing application booster and valuable skill to have in a career of research and health so I was very excited to learn the protocols. Additionally, now that I have learned the protocols for dissecting, I have been teaching a younger undergrad them and have taken point on the collagen project. This is a scientific leadership experience I have never had before and it has really supported my growth as a leader. This internship has helped me learn how to delegate time and resources on multiple side projects at once as a good leader should be able to do. Moreover, I am surrounded by leading women in this internship who set a shining example in what is a typically male dominated field. It is the strong female mentorship in the BG&R laboratory that will give me the confidence to pursue a career in what is traditionally a world of men.
I am extremely impressed and grateful at how much this internship has given to me and I am only half way through it. I was once intimidated by the biomedical engineering field and unsure if I would make it, but now with the invaluable technical knowledge and personal support I have gotten from the personnel of this female dominated laboratory, I feel both excited and confident about my future career and hope to one day serve as a female engineering leader for other young women in my same situation.