This summer, I saw how the theories I’d learned about attachment and developmental psychology at Brandeis apply to actual patients and research in the field. I learned several new skills, such as applying caps/optodes for fNIRS scans, preparing participants for and running fMRI scans, processing saliva for oxytocin assays, screening patient medical charts, and approaching hospital patients for study recruitment. 

I was able to explore a potential career as a clinical researcher and learned about various career trajectories in psychology and medicine (e.g., child psychiatrist, developmental-behavioral pediatrician, clinical psychologist, etc.). I received invaluable wisdom and guidance from Dr. Kim and her team. Also, I had the opportunity to observe a psychiatrist perform diagnostic tests and MRS scans, and learn from a school psychologist about diagnostic testing used in school systems. These experiences helped me envision potential future careers in psychology and/or medicine. Although my career interests are not completely solidified, this internship has given me a clearer understanding of what potential paths could look like. I was able to ask several professionals about their experiences and suggestions when it comes to choosing between various careers in the field.

I gained experience working in a professional setting. I was eager to gain confidence in my verbal and written communication skills to feel more sure of myself in professional spaces. This internship provided me with incredible opportunities to communicate confidently with professionals in the field.  

My advice to a student interested in a psychology research internship is that it’s crucial to find a project that genuinely excites you and aligns with your academic/personal interests. From there, it’ll be easy to immerse yourself in the work and perform to your highest potential. To a student interested in an internship at UMass Chan Medical School, my biggest piece of advice would be to take advantage of and seek out opportunities to learn from mentors there. The team is full of incredibly intelligent and insightful people eager to help you reach your goals. 

I’m proud that I can confidently say that I gave this internship my all and made a real impact with my work this summer. I am proud of my commitment and effort over the last three months and that I’ve been asked to return to the team as a Clinical Research Assistant once I graduate in December. I am excited to continue working with and learning from Dr. Kim and the larger CANDI (Child and Adolescent NeuroDevelopment Initiative) team at UMass Chan Medical School.

I am incredibly grateful that I was selected for a WOW Fellowship this summer. I’ve had so many wonderful experiences over the past three months that would have been impossible without it. Thank you!

As I’m wrapping up my internship at the Spelke Lab, I’ve been reflecting on my time here and trying to visualize myself as a psychology graduate student. Originally, I was hoping to use this experience to see if graduate school would be a good fit upon graduation. After being able to interact with the current students at the Spelke Lab and hearing about their journeys, I’ve been able to gain a very insightful view of what it’s like to do research. I’ve decided that after taking some time off school, I’d want to pursue graduate studies in the developmental neuropsychology realm to continue to do research that supports children in their homes and education.

As mentioned, in my first blog, I was looking forward to data analysis to have a better understanding of our results. Unfortunately, the specific project I’ve been working on has not yet completed data collection. However, I was able to get a rough idea of the results by making graphs along with my mentor of the preliminary data for my poster! My poster describes the project I’ve been working on and so far we have been getting surprising results that are different from previous literature. I was excited to put my work into writing and describe the purpose behind our project during our poster session. I also saw my colleagues present on their very different yet interesting projects related to children’s perception and language.

I was also looking forward to presenting a psychology article for our weekly book club meetings. A peer and I focused on articles that had to do with how emotions may affect our memory of prominent events. We chose this topic to step away from developmental psychology for a bit and read about a different aspect of psychology. These book clubs have definitely helped me become more comfortable by learning how to read valuable results from academic literature which was one of my goals coming into this internship.

While working in academic research, I’ve discovered just how flexible you have to be as an experimenter. Especially, when it comes to scheduling participants and seeing how to fill in the gaps in your data. I’ve also been surprised to see how much collaboration there was in the lab. My specific project was collaborating with a neighboring lab as another principle investigator had already done extensive research on the topic previously. My advice to future research assistants at the Spelke Lab is simply to have fun! You get to work with brilliant students who have a deep passion for developmental psychology and you get to learn so much from them. The entire lab consisted of some of the kindest people as they are willing to share their experiences in research and teach you some valuable skills. I’ll definitely be remembering my time as a research assistant in the Spelke Lab while doing research of my own.

I’m so thankful I’ve had the opportunity to be an intern at Southwick’s Zoo this summer! I’ve been able to accomplish my original learning goals while gaining valuable insights along the way. I’ve had the opportunity to work with almost all of the intern birds and in depth with a specific few. This has allowed me to gain real-world experience in training and conditioning behaviors, and I’ve been able to do more than I expected.

I’m still implementing a training project I drafted for one of the birds, Kiki, in order to stethoscope-train her so that she’s comfortable with having a stethoscope on her chest during veterinary exams. The process of designing her training plan was useful in and of itself, because it taught me how to break down behavioral training into achievable steps. Inevitably, unanticipated deviations happened almost immediately that I then had to problem-solve. For example, Kiki has a habit of bobbing up and down between cued behaviors, which causes her to become distracted and makes training more difficult. I found I had to start training a different cue to help keep her calm and still between cues so that training could progress. The progress I’ve made with her will be continued by staff members after my internship ends, but it is rewarding to have started her down this path.

Another goal I fulfilled was contributing to education about wildlife conservation. In addition to outreach during the shows, I also participated in EARTH Awareness Day on August 6th, where groups of interns made projects centered around any pressing conservation issue. My group chose to talk about how dangerous the illegal pet trade is for the captured animals themselves, the humans who attempt to keep them as pets, and the environment on a larger scale. For this project, I spent a great deal of time researching this issue and how it intersects with other environmental issues. We centered our discussion around a specific species, the cotton-top tamarin, which is critically endangered (there are only about 2,000 mature individuals left). They not only have been taken for the pet trade (and used as test subjects in colon cancer studies), but also have been severely impacted by deforestation and urban sprawl. My group put together a poster presentation as well as creating three interactive activities. We presented this to the public all day, and I enjoyed talking to people about this issue. We were able to talk about ways to help, and for those interested in concretely helping cotton-top tamarins, we encouraged them to look into Proyecto Tití, an organization that specifically focuses on aiding this species. It was nice to see how receptive zoo visitors were and to see them enjoying our activities.

In addition to gaining skills and experience in both the animal care and conservation outreach areas, I’ve also gained insight about my learning style in the workplace. Figuring out how I take in and process information has been helpful, and pushing myself out of my comfort zone has helped me feel more confident and capable. For example, now I’m able to comfortably stand on a stage in front of a large crowd and give informal presentations. Overcoming my fear like this has taught me that as long as I do something I initially find intimidating a few times, I become desensitized to the feeling and can move past it more quickly than I realized. This lesson will stay with me as I move forward.

For anyone interested in pursuing an internship at Southwick’s Zoo, I highly recommend it. One practical piece of advice I’d give for those doing a summer internship is to stay hydrated! Half the day at work is spent outside where it’s insanely hot, and the other half is inside (where it’s actually even hotter). So drink a lot and be prepared to sweat a lot! Also, be prepared for longer hours than expected in the beginning of the internship. It takes a fair amount of time to learn the specific terminology used and to learn how to perform a plethora of niche tasks both efficiently and quickly. There are also different protocols for indoor vs. outdoor husbandry, and even different rules for each specific bird, so the days often ran long for the first few weeks. You don’t clock out until you ensure all tasks are complete and the animals are cared for (as it should be, because their well-being depends on it), so having a flexible schedule is necessary. It’s also good to be aware that despite being fun and rewarding, working in the animal care field isn’t always glamorous. Most of the day is manual work, and while it may not be lifting heavy weights all the time (which depends on the department and what animals you’re working with), it is still constant movement and a lot of crouching in awkward spaces. A large part of husbandry is cleaning poop, so if you have a sensitive nose or get easily grossed out, be prepared!

Glamorous or not, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this internship. It has been impactful and has helped clarify my career direction. My interest in animals started before the internship, but I didn’t anticipate just how much I’d enjoy working with them! I really loved bonding with the animals and being part of a team that helps make sure they have the best care possible. Educating the public and contributing to conservation efforts was also a meaningful pursuit for me. I am enormously grateful to the W.O.W fellowship for helping to support me during this incredible experience! 

As the summer comes to an end, I would like to reflect on the wonderful journey I have had as an Undergraduate Researcher at the Neurochemistry and Cognition Lab. My summer internship has definitely aligned with my learning goals. My goals of the summer surrounded the theme of learning about neuroscience and psychology in a research setting. My professional goal at the beginning of the summer was to gain more exposure to lab experience to see if this would be a path I would like to take in my future. While I still do not know what I want to definitively do in my future, I love doing clinical research and could see myself working in this field. I am happy to say I will get the opportunity to continue with the lab this fall! Similarly, at the beginning of the summer, my academic goal was to learn more about cognition and through research articles, lab meetings, participant sessions, and analyzing data I have learned so much about cognition across the lifespan. In terms of personal growth, my hope was to gain more confidence in my work and I have achieved this as I have trained in administering neuropsychological exams and been given a project to present at the end of the summer.

A large portion of my work this summer has been dedicated to analyzing data for the Brandeis Aging Brain Study, described in my first blog post. While I have had some experience in analyzing data, up until this summer, it had all been completing assignments guided by an instructor. Initially, I had a lot of anxiety about independently working to understand some preliminary results of the study.  While this project challenged me, I learned how capable I am of anything I set my mind to and how guidance can always help you when you are stuck. From this experience, I have learned that when I start to work on a project, I can doubt my ability to perform successfully. However, the more I dive into my work, the more assured I am in the value of my work. In addition to gaining confidence in my work, I have recognized that I am not afraid to ask for help when I do not know how to continue my work. I am really proud of this ability because initiative in work is important but so is collaboration and knowing when to ask for help. This lab thrives because of its cooperative environment because everyone is more than happy to help each other. 

For anyone looking to join the Neurochemistry and Cognition Lab at Brandeis or get involved in neuroscience/psychology research, I highly recommend it! The best piece of advice I could give anyway is to do research online into labs you would be interested in. Familiarize yourself with the current studies the lab is working on (You can read about the lab’s upcoming study here or more of our research here!) and then reach out if you want to connect with the lab! I think anyone should get involved in research if they are interested in making advancements in the scientific community to help make a difference in the world. While my project this summer may only be a small contribution to psychology research, I am so proud of it and grateful for the lab to have given me this opportunity. I’m very excited to see how my research will continue in the fall!

I definitely believe that my learning goals were met this summer. Going into the internship, I didn’t know entirely what to expect, but my main goal was to gain true, realistic experience in a field of interest to me. This covered many fields of interest – among them were social media, graphic design, professional sports, law, public and player relations, and data collection. The realistic aspect to this is what truly made it a unique learning experience. As I explained in my previous blog posts, I have previous social media experience, but never in managing a page that has a real impact on the lives of many people. The content I put out had to be mindful of how it’s perceived so there was a lot of responsibility there.

While I am not completely sure what I want to do in the future, I feel like this internship has started to clarify a general path for me. My growth in graphic design is something I definitely have an interest in pursuing, and my social media experience is something I will continue to utilize. As I approach my senior year, I imagine myself working in a creative environment – whether that is in social media and graphic design or another field like marketing, I am not exactly sure. But I do believe that I want to tie my Psychology and Politics education – which has taught me so much about human behavior – into what I have learned this summer.

This summer I have learned that I am capable of doing more than I once believed. For example, I agreed to get in front of the camera and do an Instagram takeover for the official Brandeis Instagram page, documenting a day in the life of my internship. I never considered myself the most charismatic individual, and never really had the confidence to get in front of a camera. But this internship has taught me to be much more responsible and I have matured throughout it, so I have much more confidence in things like that.

The end goal of my internship is for the organization to become self-sufficient with its social media campaign, and thus may not be available for future applicants. That said, the USL Players Association is a young organization that is growing in prominence, so if an internship does become available it could be very beneficial for both the student and the union. I am really excited to see the USLPA grow and would always be glad to see future interns helping steer that growth. More broadly, unions are on the rise and incredibly important in all fields of business. Getting experience working in unions and particularly with modern day marketing (i.e, Social Media) is supportive of any career path a student goes down.

There are a few things in particular that I am proud of this summer. As I mentioned previously, the Instagram takeover is something that I never saw myself having courage to try. I had fun with that, but my proudest aspect wasn’t one moment in particular. This summer I am most proud of the overall work I did, because of the purpose it that work. Working in a labor union is very personally rewarding. Throughout the summer, I was working to improve the lives of hundreds if not thousands of players, while pursuing to improve the conditions of people that are often overworked, underpaid, and underrepresented. So my proudest moment wasn’t one moment at all; it was the work I did and the cause it went to.

The full video of my takeover can be found at the following link (swipe through many stories before getting to my takeover at the end) stories: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17947397956270098/

A statement regarding the suspension of a manager for alleged misconduct on players.

A congratulatory post regarding USL Championship club Sacramento Republic FC upsetting an MLS club for the third consecutive to reach the US Open Cup Final.

An announcement regarding the vacancy of the executive director’s role in the USLPA.

Welcome back to the second installment of my journey as TeamLift’s inaugural Product Management Intern!

Over the last month, I’ve learned a lot about what it means to work in a corporate start-up setting, and it hasn’t always been what I expected. In addition to doing my usual Product Management work- i.e. triangulating with design, business, technical development teams, and potential clients, and engaging in user testing and product timeline development- I’ve had to learn how to advocate for myself. As a Product Management Intern, I realized that there were times when I felt out of the loop because there were  meetings reserved for higher-level teams, who were unaware of my skills or interests. This created a disadvantage for me, negatively impacting my performance because Product Management requires up-to-date intel on product development. When I brought this issue to my supervisor’s attention, she was more than happy to bring me in for product meetings with the company’s leadership team. This has helped me perform my duties to the best of my ability. 

The World of Work is pretty different from my academic life. In academics, you tend to have very similar assignments across the board: coding, essays, exams, etc. At TeamLift, my performance is measured by my impact on the team. For instance, when I gained verbal confirmation that a high-powered financial corporation would use TeamLift’s SaaS product, I knew my networking, marketing, and product-thinking skills directly paid off.

There is also less support and structure in the world of work, however I am learning what questions to ask and which tasks to delegate. Overall, I am finding the experience to be educational.

Through my work in this internship, I’ve developed a plethora of skills that will be applicable to my future employment. Through my meetings with the company teams, I’ve gained a technical understanding of the operation of SaaS startups. I’ve developed my cross-functional communication skills, learned industry best practices, as well as Agile project and product management. These skills are the cornerstone of a successful product manager, and will serve me well when securing future employment in my field. These skills may also be applicable to my computer science, business, and entrepreneurship courses that I will be taking this coming year.

The best part of this experience, however, is the people skills that I’ve built. Interpersonal skills are considered to be the defining trait of a leader, regardless of field or profession, and are transferable across every sectors. These competencies may be unteachable in a classroom environment, as they require consistent, functional, real-world interactions, either virtually or in-person. Since part of me hopes to be an entrepreneur in the long run, knowing how to assemble a team, effectively communicate, and deliver results by working collaboratively, is key.  The brainstorming, idea generation, agreements and even discord, I experienced throughout my internship will allow me to thrive in the days to come as life takes me to new places and new experiences.

During my time at the Spelke Lab, I’ve seen the concepts learned from my Brandeis classes in a research setting. As an intern in a psychology lab, it’s been eye-opening to see the inner workings and realities of conducting research. As mentioned in my first blog, I’m working closely with a graduate student who works with children who have different levels of recognizing number words. We mostly work with preschoolers, and although we’ve had a variety of participants who have different levels of subset and cardinal principle knowers, we have had some difficulties recruiting children from a narrow and specific age range. Therefore, my mentor and I have been working to problem solve this gap in the data results. We are looking to recruit more children and follow up with families as there is no exact age for when children transition from being subset knowers to cardinal principle knowers. Additionally, a large majority of the families signed up for study recruitments come from a high socioeconomic background, which could explain why these children seem to be cardinal principle knowers at an early age. This summer internship has definitely given me a different perspective on how to work through these difficulties by consulting with others and exploring other methods of recruiting participants for studies. 

In my psychology classes at Brandeis, we often discussed research papers, however, it often seemed like we skimmed through the methods section and focused more on the results and conclusions. However, now that I’m working more on the early development of research, I’ve seen firsthand the process that goes behind recruiting participants, consent forms and actually running the studies. It’s definitely been eye-opening as I get to see a different view of research and the work and time that goes into it. 

Through my experience in the Harvard Developmental Psychology Labs, I have been able to build skills that will useful for me in the near future. Through book clubs, I have gotten used to reading published articles and am able to have meaningful conversations about the results and data that was found from previous studies. These weekly meetings have helped me to get comfortable with dissecting and understanding these articles that I will most likely encounter during my upper-level courses at Brandeis and graduate school. In addition, by learning more about the early development of these projects I feel much more prepared and equipped to begin thinking about how I will conduct my own projects when I pursue graduate studies. 

My position was mostly what I expected it to be, but not exactly. I did expect to work on the USLPA’s social outreach, which is the jist of it. However, there is a lot more to my work– both logistically and objectively. When I approached this internship, I had different ideas of the goal of this. As with my previous experience, I expected to be attempting to grow the page at all costs. This meant focusing on expanding demographics, creating entertaining designs, and using typical social outreach strategies.

That was until I learned what the goal of the organization actually was. I had to understand the ins and outs of the USLPA, what the purpose of a labor union was, and the legal side of collective bargaining agreements. Once I understood that, I had a more precise grasp on how to run this kind of page. It was not merely about gaining as many followers as possible. It had to be dealt with in a professional manner and used to adhere to the interests of the union itself. This meant using the same format as previously and posting things that are important for getting the message across– not for adjusting to the wider audience that may not be as interested in what the USLPA stands for. Again, this is not about gaining as many followers, likes and comments as possible. It is about how it can help inform and unite those who it is directed towards (mainly players), and how it can be perceived by the public.

The World of Work is more realistic, and comes with more responsibility than university life. In academics, I feel as though everything comes in a natural flow, with work piling up as a professor decides and a more rigid schedule. Though this is necessary in education, it is a disingenuous way to live, as it is not how the real world runs. In my internship, some days are slower and some days are busier. I am faced with some regular and some unexpected tasks. I have a real life responsibility, one that is more than just about getting good grades. The work I am doing can impact the lives of many people, while giving me real life pressures that are an important experience for the future. It gives me a feeling of doing something truly meaningful.

This internship is teaching me some valuable skills, both practical and informational. As I explained above, it is teaching me to adapt to a real world work environment. This is in terms of logistics and time management, as well as dealing with the pressures of things that have a real impact on people’s livelihoods. I am also building out a wider range of skills in graphic design and in my social media expertise. I have extensive experience with social media personally, so adding a professional level to that will make a big difference to me. I also have a unique interest in becoming proficient in graphic design and this is giving me that opportunity. In a world that is becoming more technologically dependent and revolving around social media, all organizations that want to be successful, in any industry, need to have a competitive online platform to promote, brand, and market themselves. Having the skills to do that is not only transferable, but a necessity in the world we live in today.

Again, the social media handles I am running are linked below:

Instagram, Twitter

Some examples of the posts from Instagram and Twitter are shown below:

I have really been enjoying my time as an undergraduate research assistant at the Neurochemistry and Cognition Lab. It has exceeded my expectations in every way possible. As an undergraduate, I assumed all I would be doing was the grunt work for the lab, However, that is so far from the truth. I feel valued as a member of the lab and know that my work is necessary to achieve the lab’s goal of understanding aging and cognitive decline more thoroughly. Likewise, the people in this lab are invaluable to work with, making this position that much better. The members of the lab cultivate such a warm and supportive environment for academic growth. Initially, coming into this internship, I was nervous of what to expect since the last time I worked in research was during high school. After working in the lab for some time, I now know that I had nothing to fear. The researchers in this lab are such great mentors who are happily willing to help me out when I have questions about my work. They are so knowledgeable about a variety of different topics related to psychology, research, graduate school and life and they always share their advice. Through this job, I am learning so much about the research process, but also so much more than I expected. 

My experience at this lab has taught me a great deal about how the World of Work differs from university/academic life. In academia, there are defined roles for students and professors. The student’s main role is to learn as much as they can from the professors who are supposed to teach them all they know. It is a logical method as the professors have much more experience in their fields compared to students, but it can be flawed in its rigidity because it does not allow the professor’s much opportunity to learn from their students. In my lab, there are clearly defined roles of each individual based on experience in research, but there is still much more of a sense of collaboration than in class. Every lab member’s opinion is valued during lab meetings and input from anyone, no matter how much expertise they have in a topic, is taken seriously. The world of work in this lab in particular is very supportive because, even though every individual has their own work they are responsible for, each time a lab member succeeds, it advances the lab as a whole in achieving its goal of learning more about neurochemistry and cognition. 

This cooperative spirit is a skill that I will try to apply to my academics, extracurricular activities,  and hopefully through my medical career. Working with others in an environment where we all win when someone succeeds is so valuable to creating a productive space. Likewise, as I have spent more time in the lab, I’ve learned much more about the neuropsychological exams that we administer in the Brandeis Aging Brain Study. I better understand how to administer and score them as well as analyze their results. These more specific skills in neuropsychology and data analytics help me comprehend how neuroscience research is applied in a clinical setting which is very beneficial to me as I would like to become a doctor. I’m so glad I’m working at the lab and for all the knowledge it has given me so far!

I’m working this summer as an intern at UMass Chan Medical School in support of Dr. Sohye Kim’s Infant Brain Imaging Study. 

Dr. Kim, a clinical psychologist and developmental scientist, seeks to discover early neural markers in the infant’s social brain that predict long-term developmental outcomes. She is also seeking to identify modifiable early-life factors that influence the trajectory of development to translate into innovative strategies for early diagnosis, prevention, and treatment in high-risk children and families. Her Infant Brain Imaging Study uses innovative imaging techniques to investigate how naturally occurring hormones in the brain and early life experiences impact social brain development. 

One part of my work in support of the study involves subject recruitment. This study looks at pairs of first-time moms and their infants, so we recruit participants at UMass Memorial Hospital within a few days of delivery. Recruitment involves pre-screening participants by reviewing their medical charts, approaching and explaining the study to Moms who we believe might be eligible, and guiding them through the consent process.

Another large part of my job involves study visits. My responsibilities include setting up materials needed for each visit, assisting in brain activity monitoring (fNIRS and fMRI scans) and salivary specimen collection, and interacting with participants. 

Below is an example of the setup for fNIRS scans. You’ll see the doll is wearing a cap with optodes attached to measure blood flow in response to neural activity. 

My main goals for the summer are the following:

1. Learn how the theories I’ve learned in psychology classes at Brandeis apply to actual research in the field and learn new methodologies like fNIRS, fMRI, and salivary oxytocin assays. These skills will make me a better future researcher or clinician, and the firsthand observation of phenomena and use of methodology will make me a better consumer of the research I learn about in classes.
2. Explore a potential career as a clinical researcher and learn from other lab members about their various career trajectories. I want to learn from professionals about their jobs in psychology and medicine to aid in my consideration of a future career as a psychiatrist, psychologist, pediatrician, etc.
3. Gain experience working in a professional setting. As my undergraduate career nearly ends, I am eager to gain confidence in my verbal and written communication skills to feel more sure of myself in professional spaces.

The first half of my internship has been phenomenal! I look forward to continuing working on my goals and learning a lot from Dr. Kim and her team during my time with them.

1. Explain your site (mission, location, type of work, etc.)

This summer, I am interning with the USL Players Association (USLPA). The United Soccer League (USL) is North America’s largest professional soccer organization, which oversees the USL Championship, USL Super League, USL League One, USL W League, USL League Two, and the USL academy. The USLPA is a labor union that currently represents all the players signed to a standard player contract in the USL Championship (men’s professional second division) and USL League One (men’s professional third division). The goals of the USLPA are to advocate for and advance the interests, terms and conditions of its players, to bargain on their behalf, and to increase the popularity of the league as well as soccer as a whole in the United States. I am running the USLPA’s social media platforms (Instagram and Twitter) in an effort to build its outreach and create a content plan going forward once I depart from this internship in August.

2. Describe the projects or tasks for which you are responsible and the impact your work will have on the greater organization. 

Specifically, the mission of this role is not to grow the page to as many followers as possible, but to use it to the advantage of the players association. The social media goal is the same as the organizational goal. I am focusing on two variations of objectives: How to engage players and how to grow a general audience. Engaging players is intended to build unity and collective identity as members of the league. It is also used to teach players about the labor union, what its goals are, who represents them, and to keep them updated about how negotiations are going. Growing a general audience is not about getting as many followers and as much engagement as possible. It is about a public impression of strength as well as growing the brand and interest in the USL. Both of these objectives are meant to be used for leverage in current and future negotiations. The USLPA is continuously fighting to improve conditions of the players, and strength and unity are two very important characteristics for having an authentic and persuasive approach to negotiations. Also, publicly perceiving this strength on social media can apply public pressure on policymakers and organizational leaders in the USL. My goal is to create a social media approach to growing the USL brand and portraying its strength.

3. What are your goals for learning this summer (from your WOW application)?

My learning goal this summer is to gain true, realistic experience in a field of interest to me. I have been involved in administering many social media accounts before, but I have never had control over a page as impactful as this. This will teach me a lot about the legal side of sports organizations, and I will be able to build hands-on skills running a page that can actually impact the lives of players. There is a professional pressure to post exactly the correct graphic, at the correct time, with a perfect caption, because any slip up there can have a consequential effect for the perception of the organization. Having this kind of responsibility will help me navigate this type of operation in the future. Going forward I am very interested in working with social media, branding and marketing for influential organizations, doing graphic design, and potentially working in the field of professional sports. This experience will give me the necessary tools and experience for all of the above.

This past month I have been working at the Spelke Lab at Harvard’s Developmental Psychology Department as a research assistant. The Spelke Lab focuses on infants and children and their experiences with hidden objects, words, numbers, and social relationships. As part of the Spelke Lab team, I’ve been able to see firsthand the methodology behind psychology research. The specific project I’m working on with a graduate student is how children explore numerical concepts as preschoolers. This project builds on concepts explained in previous literature from Susan Carey on how young children can be categorized into subset knowers and cardinal principle knowers (CP-knowers). Subset knowers understand the numerical value of small numbers such as “one”, “two”, “three”, and “four”. Children then become CP-knowers around the age of 3 ½ where they understand the concept of counting and can count larger sets. This specific project focused on the number five as it becomes a difficult numerical concept for children under 3 ½ years. This research is crucial in understanding how children come to understand numbers, whether through verbal counting, using their fingers, or a mental map and in understanding at what age do children transition from subset knowers to CP-knowers. 

As a research assistant, I’ve been responsible for mainly communicating with parents when it comes to recruiting participants for the studies, scheduling, and ensuring consent forms are sent and completed. Since the project is still in its data collection stages, I’ve been able to observe these studies where children play a game to identify how they engage with numbers and what their knower level is. Hopefully, I’ll be able to run the studies on my own soon and interact with the participants more. Since we may be doing data analysis soon, I’ve also been getting trained on softwares such as Detavyu and RStudio. The lab team has also been meeting up for book clubs and lab lunches weekly. It’s been great to hear from other graduate students and the research they’re doing regarding how children perceive social relationships and vocabulary. This past week we even had a very interesting conversation during book club on language and how previous research explored word gaps between children in different socioeconomic backgrounds. 

As a rising senior, I wanted to explore potentially going into graduate school for psychology research. So far, my experience at the Spelke Lab has allowed me to work directly with researchers and helped me get comfortable with reading published articles. This summer I’m looking forward to beginning data analysis and seeing how the results of these studies compare to the previous literature. I’m also looking forward to leading my own book club discussion, hopefully exploring literature on the neurological side of development and neuroplasticity. All the research assistants will also be creating a poster on their specific projects. I’m excited to work on my poster that I’ll be presenting towards the end of the summer and also seeing the results of other projects from the lab. 

This summer, I have the privilege to be working as an undergraduate research assistant for the Neurochemistry and Cognition Lab at Brandeis University located in Boston, Massachusetts. The Neurochemistry and Cognition Lab is in the Department of Psychology and supervised by Principal Investigator, Anne Berry, Ph.D. The research team I am working with consists of the principal investigator, research administrator, lab manager, research assistants, a postdoctoral fellow, PhD students, and two other undergraduate research assistants. The mission of the lab is to better comprehend neurological factors that influence cognitive decline in older age. Through behavioral and neuroimaging tests (fMRI, EEG, PET), the lab studies how lifestyle and neurobiological components, like the dopamine system, shape different aspects of cognition across young and older adults. 

​​As an undergraduate research assistant, I spend most of my time focusing on the Brandeis Aging Brain Study. The goal of the Brandeis Aging Brain Study is to better understand cognition and thought as humans age. It is a longitudinal study in which some participants are invited to return to the lab every few years. The study consists of multiple tests to examine cognitive performance. Some of the exams are on paper and pen while others are on the computer. The exams consist of tasks including solving different types of puzzles and remembering lists of words. It is approximately 3 to 4 hours. The participants are mostly older adults, all healthy, who are passionate about research and committed to participating for a longer-term collaboration.

I am being trained so I can administer these neuropsychological testing sessions; this has included shadowing sessions and learning how to supervise and evaluate the results of the various exams. I have also been helping recruit participants and supervise pilot trials (initial trials of a study) for a postdoc researching aspects of intrinsic motivation (curiosity). Additionally, I attend weekly lab meetings in which we discuss obstacles and potential solutions to different lab members’ research as well as possible directions for new research. I have read past academic papers the lab has published and other papers the lab has used as the topic of periodic journal clubs. Along with the other undergraduates in the lab, I have helped the lab stay informed about its participants by organizing the participants’ data and communicating with them through newsletters we send out.

This internship directly aligns with my personal, professional, and academic goals. As a neuroscience major at Brandeis, I have always been interested in the brain and how it functions across a lifespan. In the Neurochemistry and Cognition Lab we directly study how the brain ages overtime and what factors contribute to healthy cognition and thinking in older adults. Similarly, as a rising senior, I am thinking of my career path after college. I am very interested in gaining more experience in neuroscience research to potentially pursue this field later on in my life. The lab provides me with a warm and welcoming environment to explore the world of neuroscience and psychology research and gain confidence in my work as I take on more responsibilities in the lab while being guided by those around me. I’m really excited for what the summer has to offer!

As a Universal-Category WOW Fellow, I am currently the inaugural Product Management Intern at a tech startup called Teamlift. Teamlift is a software-as-a-service (Saas) company that is revolutionizing the future of work by developing an AI-based skills mapping software. Their product uses employee data and data from project management softwares at companies to identify, validate, and develop skills within that organization. While our official headquarters are in Boston, our team is incredibly diverse, and this summer we are working from across the globe: people are Zooming in from places as distant as Macedonia, the US, and Bangladesh(me!). I can safely say that I’ve learned how to do just about any time zone calculation in my head by now!

When I started my internship this summer, I definitely hit the ground running. Product managers triangulate with UI/UX i.e. design teams, sales and marketing teams, technical development teams, and most importantly their potential clients. And I entered the role as we began interviews to determine preliminary customer feedback, or as we call it, “User Testing”. Prior to actually working as a Product Manager, I assumed that User Testing only consisted of showing a customer a version of the product and then asking them what they thought open-endedly. Instead, I discovered that User Testing is a process with distinct stages. Firstly, we ask a set of unbiased questions to understand the customer’s pain point(more on that below!), and strategize how that can be solved. Of course, we do show our users the product and let them test it. However, in addition to an opportunity for open-ended feedback, I learned that there was a stage in which I needed to ask more specific questions about various features of the product. I also gleaned that Product Managers need to be careful in their phrasing of questions, since the goal of a Product Manager in a User Testing interview is to get responses that are as unbiased and truthful as possible. We need to determine customers’ “Pain Points”: things that the customer identifies as annoyances or problems, either with the product or more generally in daily life. The ideal product will cater to these pain points and assuage customers’ struggles in the sphere of the product. 

As a next step, Product Managers need to collaborate with design and development teams to take new feedback into account. After I’ve synthesized and summarized responses from User Testing interviews, I meet with Teamlift’s tech and design teams to improve our prototype. I’ve learned to use a program called Figma for design management, and I’ve had enlightening conversations with our development team about the AI they’ve developed so far. I’m still trying to grasp AI models more in-depth, since as a Computer Science major and Technology-sphere Product Manager it is particularly advantageous for me to comprehend as many of the aspects of the product as I can. Notwithstanding, my final current task involves visualizing product roadmaps, or determining a timeline for the product from a prototype to a stable release. 

This experience at Teamlift– albeit only one month so far– has been instrumental in helping me develop desirable skills in my field and giving me a glance into the real world of Product Management. Thanks to the fellowships team, and stay tuned!

I met my academic learning goal of writing ten statistical programs in R. I integrated Google Analytics with RStudio and analyzed the website data using my programming skills. This data mining allowed me to evaluate the long term trends of the traffic and engagement on the website. I also wrote several programs in the statistical program STATA when analyzing the EdTech industry as a whole and collecting key information about company competitors. 

 I met my personal goal of having twenty virtual meetings with colleagues. Each week there were three meetings on Microsoft Teams where I learned how to sharpen my professional communication skills and plan the next steps with other members of the team. In addition, I had some one-on-one meetings with individual team members to discuss the progress of projects we were working on. 

 I did not meet my professional goal of gaining one hundred followers on each of the company’s social media platforms. Working at an early stage startup often means that the needs of the company can change drastically over time. At the beginning of the summer, it seemed as though social media management would be one of my responsibilities but later it became clear that more work needed to be done on market research. Hence, my goal changed to writing ten statistical programs in STATA to gain insights about the competitor landscape; I met this goal.

I would say this internship helped clarify my career interests significantly. I learned that I am highly interested in working in roles related to statistics and data science. Additionally, I am now more aware that I work better when I have periodic meetings with team members to discuss progress on our projects. These meetings give the projects more structure and allow people to give valuable feedback.

 If I were to give advice to a student interested in interning at my host organization, I would tell them to strive to ask more questions to their colleagues. When you run into a difficult problem, it is often very helpful to message your colleagues and ask for their thoughts. They will often point you into the right direction. Additionally, it is important to ask questions to your supervisor about assigned tasks in order to ensure you have a better understanding of their expectations. 

If I were to give advice to a student interested in interning in the EdTech industry, I would recommend using and familiarizing themselves with the current most popular EdTech tools. This helped me gain a deeper understanding of the industry and become aware of the technology-related problems faced by students, parents, teachers, and administrators. EdTech is a rapidly changing field and it is important to understand the users’ perspective when it comes to analyzing the industry, engineering the product, marketing, etc. 

This summer I am most proud of how my data analysis skills improved because these are skills that have many real-world applications . At the start of the summer, I did not have a very good grasp on using STATA but during the course of this internship I taught myself how to conduct Monte Carlo simulations and other techniques. Generally, I became more familiar with R, STATA, Excel, etc. and discovered new functions for these tools. 

While I still have several more weeks of my internship, I know the bittersweet ending is surely nearing as I am now working on my final tasks.

Reflecting on my experience, I now understand a crucial thing about the entrepreneurial environment: the only constant is complication. No matter how simple, small or inconsequential a Salesforce or Excel task may have seemed at a first glance, it always took longer than I could ever have expected. Due to the fact that every system and process was uncharted territory for EMA, everything required multiple iterations and everything took time.  Naturally, this changed how much I ended up completing versus how much I expected to complete. However, this does not mean I didn’t learn as much as I expected to. If anything, it forced me to find alternative solutions, rethink my approaches, and ask my advisors more specific questions than I would have had to if all went according to plan. I gained a far deeper understanding of the different software I worked with, and in this sense my internship was a huge success. I will surely be more confident going into a technical business role than before my internship.

The one goal I was unable to accomplish was being able to interact and speak with attorneys from EMA’s network. I did not have opportunities to speak with lawyers about litigating; however, I was able to speak with EMA’s in-house attorney and gain some insight into what it is like as a startup business attorney.

Overall, I would say I am most proud of myself for rolling with the punches. I was given tasks that I had no idea where to even begin looking, but I eventually figured out each task. I had to stretch my resourcefulness as far as it could go, and along the way I gained a working understanding of a software I had no prior experience with. I have finally gained the confidence that I can handle whatever is thrown at me, all I have to do is find a starting place.

This internship has clarified my career interests because I now know the kind of work I do enjoy and the work I don’t enjoy. For example, I absolutely loved discussing the pros and cons of one system versus another with my advisors. I really enjoyed talking about the customer experience and how we can tailor their website to be even more appealing. On the other hand, I wasn’t as fond of repetitive tasks like creating dozens of new entry fields. I learned that I derive a lot of satisfaction from working with people and brainstorming solutions to problems. This knowledge about myself will surely be useful when choosing what jobs to apply for and which ones to pass on.

EMA falls into two categories: a startup business and a litigation-based business. For any future startup interns, I have several pieces of advice:

• Your job description may say one thing, but you will need to wear many hats. Embrace the learning experience rather than fear the different kinds of thinking you may need to do.
• Simple is elegant. Extraneous pieces and details of a system will only serve to complicate your task as well as the business’ operations. Make a product or system as simple as you possibly can to suit their goals.

I also have some advice to any future EMA interns:

• Work closely with the in-house lawyers. While your tasks might seem much more on the business side, EMA is a litigation-based business so much of the business tasks are only there to best fit the needs of the lawyers in preparing client documents and litigating for clients.
• Your supervisors are very experienced and knowledgeable; don’t be afraid to ask them any questions that you are curious about.
• Visit their website to get a better idea of who they are and what they do. Their business isn’t simple so learning more about them will give you a much clearer understanding of what they may ask you to do.

This summer, I met most of my learning goals with Health Innovation Capital. I had initially hoped to garner whether or not law school was the right path for me in reaching my ultimate goals. Thankfully, this experience has confirmed for me that it is the right choice. I have greatly enjoyed meeting with our counsel, discussing legal issues, working on contracts, and more. I hope to continue to pursue my passions by attending law school in the future. This internship has given me some invaluable experience which could help me in meeting this goal. I had also hoped to become more proficient in understanding legalese and language when reading contracts. I now have a better grip on the way that professional contracts are written and structured, along with an understanding of how to go about writing them and referencing necessary information like statutes and laws. I have absolutely achieved this goal as well, with a much more comprehensive understanding of how contracts work and understanding their purpose. Overall, my goals did not really have to change. While there may have been some challenges in other aspects of the remote work environment, the content of my work and their interaction with my goals was met.

As previously mentioned, this internship has confirmed my anticipated career path. It is my overarching goal to become an agent and represent athletes in both club and endorsement settings. While contract work is obviously key, and the work I did this summer was invaluable with them, I also learned how to approach meetings with potential clients, administrators, etc. This skill set was something I honestly had not used much in the past. However, I was able to build and refine these skills over the summer, which also could be invaluable if I am fortunate enough to achieve my goals. Aside from this, I realized that I am very good at independent work. Once given a task, I take it and run. I am not afraid to ask for help, however, and when I get stuck, I have no problem approaching a superior.

Some advice I would give to a student look at a potential internship with HIC would be to prepare to work hard and be given more responsibility than one might expect for an undergraduate intern in the venture capital space. HIC is small, and therefore you will be utilized to your fullest potential. I unlocked skills I didn’t even realize I had, but the challenge of HIC made them come to life. I also recommend catching up on the Healthcare industry and exploring ESG as they are an impact fund. For those interested in venture capital in general, I’d say to be prepared for a super fast-paced environment. Companies move quickly and there is big money involved in the space. Be prepared to work late hours and be challenged, but it will be worth it.

Overall, this summer, I am most proud of my adaptability. I mentioned in a previous blog post how remote work was a challenge. However, I made it my own and was able to adapt to the new workforce. While I struggled at first, my ability to make the best of it made me proud, as I have also had challenges in being adaptable when it came to working with others. I overcame it however and had a great summer.

Working remotely has strengths and weaknesses relative to in-person work. A large advantage of in-person work is that you can ask questions to your coworkers and receive the answer immediately or relatively soon by simply visiting their office or workspace. However, when working remotely, you may only be able to send them an email and then you might have to wait longer for their answer. On the other hand, our company uses Slack as a communication platform so I am able to get answers much faster since Slack notifies my coworkers instantly if their names are mentioned. Overall, I enjoy this internship because there are several weekly meetings where you have the opportunity to ask questions and learn about what other coworkers are working on.

World of Work has differed from academic life because it is less predictable. Academic courses have a structured syllabus with the list of exams, projects, meeting times, papers, etc. However, the tasks and nature of my internship can change significantly from day to day depending on the needs of the startup. People who work in startups frequently have many different roles since resources are often scarce. One day I am working on updating the website and increasing my knowledge of PHP and the next day I am researching social media influencers in the EdTech space for each market segment. 

In addition, my internship is more reliant on other people compared with academic life. In courses, most of the time is spent doing assignments and studying alone (although working with others is sometimes permitted). However, my role for this internship relies on other coworkers. For example, it is necessary to have one-on-one meetings with a coworker to brainstorm ideas on how to move the project forward. 

This summer, I have been improving my skills with the statistical programming language R. I learned how to integrate R with Google Analytics and get more in-depth information about website metrics and Google ad campaigns. This will be transferable to a future career in data analysis because R is a very important programming language in this field. Additionally, Google Analytics is a crucial skill for any business with a website.  In terms of academics, R is a widely used language in many economics and statistics courses such as Econometrics and is often used for research purposes. 

Another skill I have been working on this summer is academic literature review. In an effort to learn more about the EdTech industry and the company’s target customers, I have searched for related papers on Google Scholar, Library OneSearch, and ResearchGate. I read these studies and learned how they could be applicable to the company’s objectives.  This will be transferable academically because literature review is important when writing a paper for a class as well as when conducting academic research for a professor. In terms of a future career, reading academic studies is a useful skill because it reinforces statistical concepts such as Chi-Squared Tests, Analysis of Variance, etc. since these tests are used in the literature. 

My personal goal for this internship was to deepen my understanding of the struggle for racial justice in the United States, which I have achieved. During my internship, I conducted in-depth research on several important events in the Civil Rights Movement, such as the Freedom Rides, Nashville Student Movement, and the March on Washington. When I looked at the pictures of the Freedom Riders being beaten by the white supremacists, I not only learned history, but also sympathized with the Riders. In the meantime, I found that history is always repeating itself. Recently during the pandemic, Asian Americans were randomly attacked on the street — like the Freedom Riders, they did nothing but were beaten because they had the “wrong” skin color in society.

My academic goal, enhancing my understanding of the Cold War, was also fulfilled by researching the international influence of the Civil Rights Movement. I conducted research on China in order to find how the Chinese government published the Civil Rights Movement. I also discovered that Chairman Mao, the most influential figure in early China, once met with civil rights leader Robert F. Williams and offered his support for the Movement. Through the encounter of this special relationship between Chinese government and the Movement, I also learned international relations from a unique perspective. In terms of my career goal, this internship overall helped me comprehend American history more deeply, and how legislative changes were made under the pressure of civil rights movements; although my research actually reveals how slow legislative changes could be.

(Photo description: Chairman Mao signed Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong “the Little Red Book” for Robert Williams on the national day of People’s Republic of China in 1966. CR: Wikipedia)

For students who would like to apply for a research assistant internship, particularly in humanities, the first thing is to learn basic research skills. Those skills could be how to use Brandeis OneSearch, using the Brandeis library database to search for useful websites, how to get access to the books in the library, or how to submit a request for a book that is not possessed by Brandeis library. Although your UWS instructors have taught you that, it is important to remember those seemingly “useless” skills. Next, you should be familiar with the basic search engines on each website; they all look familiar and have the same techniques. You should grasp the key words of your question and find other specific information about the topic that could limit the search. For example, when I am looking for primary sources for a historical event, I often frame the publishing date to several years around the time of the event. What is more, being a research assistant requires people to be meticulous. Attention to detail is necessary for many jobs, so it will not harm if you start to train yourself to be meticulous; watch every word, every space, every punctuation in your writing and be used to double-check carefully. 

Conducting my internship virtually has certainly introduced both benefits and hurdles, but overall I am extremely happy in the company where I am working. One of the hardest things about remote work is that, naturally, all communication and interactions has to be virtual. I have found this to restrict group problem solving; I can’t just pop into the office of a colleague or supervisor to ask them quick questions about the project, and I also try to avoid spamming their phone with emails every minute of the day. As a result, I end up having to condense a lot of my questions and comments into our periodic conversations. Also, being virtual means conversations have to be scheduled. Consequently, conversation about non-work related topics is slightly less organic.

That being said, virtual work has offered me a great work-life balance. Rather than being evaluated based on daily hourly dedication, I am evaluated on pace of completion. Although this distinction seems subtle at first, it does make a great deal of a difference in practical matters. In a normal office setting, it is considered odd and often unacceptable to simply not show up any given day. On the other hand, working virtually enables me to do a lot of work on one day and none on a day in which I have other matters to tend to. Orienting my internship in this way enables me to be both happier and more productive.

In addition, my internship has undoubtedly furthered me towards my goals to strengthen both technical and social skills. In academic contexts, I have total control over the direction of my papers, essays and projects. The success and failure is based purely on my planning  and execution of  tasks. This is not the case in my internship. My supervisors, my coworkers, and I all have our own opinions of how a project should proceed, so the outcome of any given project is driven far more on the ability of the group to coordinate their ideas and efforts, as opposed my own motivation of for any task I have for school. With this comes an entirely different set of skills. Rather than being able to quickly process information and arrive at a conclusion, much time is spent on articulating ideas and balancing concessions.

Additionally, I am finally becoming functional in Salesforce and Excel’s Power Query. It has taken a lot of trial and error, exploration, and informational videos, but I am now able to comfortably navigate and solve business problems on EMA‘s digital platforms. Given the nature of work in business and law, the technical and social skills I am learning will be crucial in any kind of work environment I may encounter in my future career.

Working remotely requires a more efficient and straightforward way of communication which I have acquired during the first week of my internship. Because I only report to one supervisor, who also has other research projects going on and other assistants to supervise, sometimes he cannot respond to my messages immediately. In order to avoid wasting time waiting for him to tell me the next task, I always let him know about 15 to 30 minutes in advance before I finish my current task. In this case, my supervisor will have time to arrange my next task. If I feel that the current task will take more time than usual to finish, I will also let him know about my progress.

Although some people find working from home really comfortable, I think a remote internship is actually more exhausted both physically and mentally. Although this internship is my first remote job, this is not my first time working with a laptop during 90% of the working hours. Sitting in a chair for at least 5 hours a day makes my back ache, and I had to go to a chiropractor for treatment. What is more, I am not fond of video chatting and zoom meetings — I prefer in-person conversation. At first, it was a little depressing for me to stay in front of my laptop all day and barely talk to anyone in person. Then, I quickly adjusted myself with regular grocery-shopping and in-door dining, conforming with COVID regulations.

Despite the fact that many research assistant jobs are very similar to the research we do when writing a research paper, there are some notable differences between a research job and schoolwork. All of the research papers I have written have word limits, but my current job on researching the Freedom Rides does not have a “limit.” I need to dig into the historical event as detailed as possible.

My academic life has not been vacant for the summer. As an international student, I must take INT 92G (Summer Internship) in order to be legally working off-campus. The course requires all students to complete a number of tasks to get credit. At the first glance, taking an “internship” class during the summer would seem boring and exhausting, but I found some of the readings really helpful, especially in coping with remote work. An article from the New York Times, Struggling to Disconnect from Our Digital Lives, offers a great perspective on how to deal with being dominant with electronic devices and online work. As working from home has been gradually considered into many companies’ long-term policies, this internship could help me adapt to the new work style and be ready for the uncertain working styles in the future.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I conduct research on the Civil Rights Movement and the life of Congressman John Lewis. Beyond the American history knowledge I learn from this internship, I also realize the present significance of the Movement and better comprehend the struggle of African-Americans.

(CR: New York Times)

When the New York Times reported that the Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus was arrested on Friday for protesting against the languishing of John Lewis Voting Rights Act, I felt that I was not reading a piece of news, but witnessing the effort that present activists spend to continue fighting for the systematic inequality that I have spent time researching. Learning and researching historical events is not only a skill but also a way of gaining another perspective to comprehend American politics and present-day racial struggle in the country, which could be helpful for my future career in the legal field.

This summer, I am working virtually as a legal and administrative intern with Health Innovation Capital (HIC), a Chicago-based venture capital impact investor targeting the unmet innovation needs of pediatric patients within oncology, infectious diseases, and select rare/orphan designations. We are among the only independent U.S. Impact venture capital firms that maintains such an integrated investment thesis, impact strategy, and return model. Our mission is stated as follows, “HIC is committed to ensuring that the health innovation and impact investing that the firm pursues improves the quality of life and outcomes for the most vulnerable and at-risk patient populations. We evolved from the belief that there is no silver bullet to creating a sustainable, medicinally relevant, commercially viable and investor worthy medical innovation company that is patient and outcomes driven to the core.”

While HIC follows the format of a typical venture capital fund, (fundraising through limited partners and investing in growing businesses) we have a focus on impact. To ensure that all patients have access to care regardless of income, location, or another factor, HIC has established a not-for-profit organization that partners with centers of excellence around the world and donates an estimated 10% of the general partner carry allocation or 2% of the firm’s overall performance back to these centers of excellence.

As this is only the firm’s first fund, it could be considered a startup. Therefore, I have been involved in helping set up and choose many of the business administration tools our whole fund will be using such as our Customer Relationship Management tool (CRM), our fund administrator, and our data room provider. Through meetings with different representatives taking notes, comparing and contrasting functionality, and discussing with the general partners we have made decisions and hope to get all three fully set up by the end of next week. I also have helped create and organize our company’s digital filing system and created Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for sharing and saving data, which has streamlined communication and organization for us. On the legal side, I have had the opportunity to help read and even write up employment agreements for some of the fund’s new hires. Not only this, but I have created and sent out many non-disclosure agreements to be executed by those with who we begin to do business. This has not only taught me how to better read and understand contracts and legalese but has helped the partners and general counsel by speeding up business processes.

My learning goals for the rest of the summer are to continue working in lockstep with the general partners to continue gaining experience in the field of venture capital and transaction law. I will continue to work with legal counsel and the general partners to help revise and finalize different legal documentation such as term sheets and private placement memorandums with the final goal of being able to create and execute them independently. I will also undergo training on how to evaluate new investments and learn, from the ground-up with senior partner mentorship, how a sector-specific venture investor identifies, evaluates, and executes investments in a diverse set of companies. On occasion, I may also support a General Partner and HIC portfolio company’s executives (CEOs, COOs, etc.) to employ a revised investment and operating model to drive investor returns.

This summer I am working as a research intern for the Healthy Buildings program at the Harvard School of Public Health. The goal of this program is to improve the lives of people in all buildings and indoor spaces by conducting and conveying research regarding public health and building science. I am responsible for three projects this month. The first one is creating the layout for a website for an extensive three-part research regarding the impact of green buildings on cognitive function. The second project that I am a part of is called the “healthy homes app” where I am able to work with a very innovative and diverse team. The purpose of this project is to create a mobile application in order to raise awareness of the existence of and harm related to indoor air pollutants on human health. We are trying to develop a digital solution to reduce the effects of indoor air pollutants. In order to do this, effective background research is necessary which is what I have been focusing on. The third project that I have dedicated my time to is translating various scientific papers in order to make it more accessible to the public. I truly believe that all the work I do this summer will contribute to helping the program rapidly make progress in the world of research and bringing real- world change. 

As my background is in Environmental Studies, this internship directly aligns with my interest and the type of higher education I plan to pursue in the future. I am very passionate about sustainability and have started developing greater interest when it comes to the built environment and its impact on people. My work to help conduct more research regarding this subject and translating the findings to make it more accessible to the general public is definitely a substantial learning opportunity. Throughout this internship, my goal is to learn more about the correlation between the built environment and the impacts on human health.

This summer, I work as a Research Assistant for Kogan Communications, where I report to the owner of the firm, Dr. Kogan, every workday. Our research topic is mainly about the Civil Rights Movement; the most consequential moral movement of the last century, and how civil rights activist, Congressman John Lewis contributed to the movement and to American society.

During the first several days of work, I mainly conducted research on some clips of the Civil Rights Movement that John Lewis was actively involved in. For example, I tried to find detailed information as much as possible for the First Freedom Ride. The First Freedom Ride began on May 4, 1961, when 13 freedom riders (7 blacks, including John Lewis, and 6 whites) left Washington, D.C., on two buses, aiming at New Orleans. The intention of the ride was to test the Supreme Court’s ruling in Boynton vs. Virginia (1960) which ruled segregation in interstate buses unconstitutional. One of my jobs was to conduct research on the ride and write a detailed chronology — where the riders were each day; if they were attacked, the reaction from the governmental officials and the public, etc.

During the research, I found several websites and books that depict Freedom Rides in detail. One of the most notable books is John Lewis’s memoir, Walking with the Wind in which Lewis narrates his experiences during the Movement along with his physical and mental feelings. While closely reading the book, I not only understand the courage of the freedom riders but also the importance and greatness of non-violence means of fighting. I listened to the interviews that John Lewis had in the 21st century where he not only talked about the Movement but also juxtaposed it with recent events. The role that John Lewis played in the Freedom Rides and the Movement was notable, and his experiences and leadership could serve as a model for present civil rights activists. In addition to John Lewis’s memoir, I hope I could have more narratives on the practice of nonviolence. 

John Lewis, left, and Jim Zwerg, a Fisk student, checks out their injuries after been beaten by a mob after they arrived in Montgomery, Alabama, May 20, 1961. (cr: USA Today)

Conducting research on the historical events triggered by racial segregation also has significance today. The Civil Rights Movement shows how structural racism was handled in the U.S., which is also a learning goal of mine doing the research. The leadership of John Lewis is also inspiring for people of color, like me, who want to fight for racial equality in the country.

Other than the Freedom Rides, I also conduct research on China and USSR’s propaganda to the Civil Rights Movement in the Cold War era when the triangular relationship of three countries (U.S., China, and the USSR)  was subtle but sensitive. My native proficiency in Chinese also enables me to analyze the primary sources in Chinese, thereby get more access to a variety of materials. In the recent future, I hope I can deepen my understanding of how international relationships influenced the Civil Rights Movement through research.

I set out into the summer with what I thought were some fairly broad and undefined learning goals: I wanted to gain experience doing machine learning, and I wanted to experience a professional environment, particularly a software development-oriented one.

Although the remote nature of my internship did not allow me to become as intimately acquainted with office life as I would have liked, I was still able to learn a lot about what day-to-day interactions are like, what working as a team in this kind of setting is like, and, most importantly, about machine learning. Being given the opportunity to push my own boundaries regarding this particular skill was really rewarding, as these are industry skills that will greatly benefit me going forward.

This internship provided clarity in terms of my career interests. I have been interested in software development for a while, and this was the perfect opportunity for me to see how my academic interests would transfer to the real world. I have learned how to interact with both peers and supervisors in a professional setting, which will greatly benefit me in the near future, as I progress along my professional journey.

To a student intern who was interested in obtaining a position with my host organization, I would advise them that even if things seem like they’re moving fast at first, it’s only a matter of time before your level of relative unfamiliarity wears off. Once I figured out my place and role on the team, I was able to quickly move forward with my personal project, which furthered my understanding of what I was supposed to do. 

To someone interested in a computer science internship, I would advise them to keep their head above the water. The field itself moves fast, and changes can be both imperceptible and sudden at the same time. There is enormous demand for computer science jobs and interns, so if you pay attention and are competent, plenty of incredible opportunities will come your way. 

This summer, I’m most proud of the contributions I’ve made at Image Insight. I had hoped to bring new insights and methods of analysis by reinventing their wheels, and I think I’ve done precisely that. One regret I have is that I was not able to fully finish one component of my assignment using machine learning, and had to implement a statistical approach to overcome this roadblock. Yet, by and large, this has been a summer of exploration and of learning. I’m very proud of my learning and contributions, and excited to take this experience with me moving forward.

Looking back at the first half of the summer, it’s crazy how fast time seems to fly. It seems like my internship started yesterday and feels like it has only been a week or two since I came home from school in mid-March. Yet, in the span of these few short months, I’ve learned a lot about working.

At first, I had mixed feelings about having a virtual internship. I wondered if it would be possible for me to get all my work done without constant live access to my supervisor. I asked myself if I would really be able to experience what work is like as a software engineer without the actual work environment and the human interactions around me?

As the summer progressed, I found myself answering these questions without the need for physical interaction. Don’t get me wrong. I would prefer the live interaction, but I was able to experience much of the day-to-day interaction of a cohesive team without actually being physically in-person, including large group calls, progress updates, and screen sharing code. Developing technology requires teamwork, and I have begun to learn how to collaborate virtually as a software engineer. Our work ends up being located in the cloud regardless of whether we gather in person or through Zoom.

Halfway through the summer I have also experienced significant differences between the work environment and academic life. At school, professors are generally much more prepared to handle mistakes one might encounter, having anticipated their occurrence and frame of reference. Furthermore, in the classes I’ve taken so far, the path set for us by the professor is also one they have experienced and determined.

In contrast, in the real-world there is no rubric that will give an exact output or desired set of parameters. Multiple times during my internship, when stranded with a foreign error message, I had to go diagnose the root of the problem myself by drudging through thousands of lines of documentation that my supervisor and I had’t written to find the root of a single problem. This is not exactly the work that is the most intriguing and inspiring to do, but it is required to achieve our goals. I have also experienced times during the first few weeks of my internship when problems were not as well defined. Grappling with these more vague problems has been an interesting challenge, and they have taught me to work through ambiguity.

I have built a lot of valuable skills this summer, most importantly a much deeper understanding of machine learning. Although I felt reasonably comfortable going into my summer role, this internship has both pushed me to learn much more and expand my boundaries beyond where I previously felt comfortable. Now, with a much higher level of understanding, I am beginning to see the forest through the trees. This skill will be immensely useful, as machine learning and artificial intelligence are growing fields, and my developing talent and experience will be in very high demand in the near future. 

The COVID situation has brought unprecedented circumstances and seemed surreal for many of us. One of the changes includes working my internship virtually. So how exactly is a virtual internship different from a regular internship? I’ll share my own experience, comparing with that of my internship last year at AIAcademy?

Virtual internship means building your own schedule. To many, that could feel liberating to not follow a rigid schedule and do what you want with your time. Personally, I find more value in a predictable constant schedule. With all these distractions at our fingertips, it is super easy to burn a couple of hours watching Netflix or playing video games. To that my solution is (the same as during the academic year) to build a schedule on Google Calendar and try to follow it as strictly as possible. So far that has been working out quite well 😀

One difficulty to a virtual internship is the limitation of communications with one’s supervisor and peers. In an on-site setting, it is as simple as turning your chair 90 degree to ask a question, have your supervisor look through your code and try fixes. Now, if I were to ask my supervisor for technical help, I would have to schedule a meeting and have him look through my shared screen and tell me what fixes he might implement. However, even facing these differences, I think communications amongst the team are being done quite effectively and effciently at Nobee using Zoom. Clearly, working remotely has notable distinctions compared to working on-site. Still, I appreciate the opportunity to be able to work remotely and highly reduce my chances of contracting the virus.

During my internship at Nobee, I focus on building my back-end web developing skills with Ruby on Rails. I’m hoping by building functions for Nobee’s website, my Ruby on Rails skills will be sharpened. Getting through the beginning is always the hardest, but once one gets a hang of a language or a library, it’s becomes a lot quicker to learn it further. I’m hoping that Ruby on Rails will enhance my resume and skillset and better equip me for the daunting job search. There are currently 8,888 job search results from Indeed when I searched for “Ruby on Rails” in the United States (305 were entry level)! Given the economic impact of the pandemic and not prime recruiting period, it seems Ruby on Rails is quite in-demand in the job market and possessing this skill will be a great advantage. Also, working at Nobee has opened  a new path for me in my tech career – backend web developing that I am enjoying more and more every day and I look forward to making it my Computer Science specialty.

After eight weeks at the Hariri Imaging Lab, I think I can say that I was able to meet my defined learning goals. My goals shifted as time went on, but overall remained similar to what I originally set out to achieve. My academic goal to further understand the respiratory system most definitely was achieved. I learned the anatomy of the lungs and bronchioles, gained a deeper understanding of the alveoli, and saw many stages of different diseases in the lung. After observing many sign outs and running analyses on digital biopsy slides, I can even point out certain features of the lung at the cellular level! A second goal of mine was to be exposed to the life of an MD/PhD. I was able to see how the research conducted in the lab directly applies to the process of prevention and diagnoses of disease in the clinical setting. I think that interning in this translational medicine lab gave me good insight to the field, but I also think that it is only one of the many different types of research out there. Lastly, I wanted to gain confidence as a woman in science. I was pleasantly surprised that many of the doctors and researchers that I interacted with were women. Thus, I was able to learn first-hand the experiences of being a woman in science and medicine, as well as gain multiple perspectives on my future career path.

I have learned so much from this internship about myself and my future career. I have learned that I, without a doubt, want to be a medical doctor and apply to medical school this upcoming year. I consistently found the tasks we did and the topics we discussed that related to the diagnosis process or regarding lung diseases to be extremely interesting. I also learned that I do not want to solely be a researcher- I like the integration between being a researcher and a doctor. During my gap year, I plan on doing more experiential learning so that I can decide if I would like to apply for an MD/PhD program or just an MD program. Additionally, I discovered I would like to work in a field that has a lot of human interaction. Although I interact with the other members of the lab each day, a career with more human/patient interaction would be more enjoyable for me.
After this internship, I feel as though I have a more open mindset about research. Before this internship, I had never worked in a research lab and thought of it as intimidating. I expected the environment to be very structured and intense, however, this lab environment was collaborative, and the research team worked efficiently both individually and as team members. I think if I had known this earlier, I would have tried to work or intern in a lab earlier. This experience has taught me that labs offer a great setting to learn and to feel comfortable with asking questions.
Something that I am proud of from my internship this summer is my increase in self-confidence and adaptability. I am someone who prefers schedules and clear guidelines. Many of the tasks that I was working on this summer were new to me and came with minimal instruction. At first, I was nervous about not being told exactly what to do. However, over the time of the internship, I learned that the lack of instruction increased my creativity and growth. This exposure made me more confident in my abilities. I am glad I interned at the Hariri Imaging Lab because I am better prepared for my next challenge.

• Ashley Bass

My summer internship at the New England Aquarium has wildly surpassed all my expectations and goals. When I first applied as a Marine Mammal Research and Education Intern, I had a broad understanding of what I would be able to accomplish in a single summer.

Contrasting the lack of Brandeis’s marine science curriculum, I originally hoped to academically broaden my marine science knowledge. During the last few months in a fieldwork setting, I have learned so much about whale behavior, physiology, as well as threats that they face every day from humans. After these few months I have a much more holistic understanding of the impact that anthropogenic activity has on marine life.

I also hoped to gain techniques and skills in the field that I could use in future research. I have become proficient in recording information such as weather data or distinguishing different behaviors of various marine mammals. This internship has taught me how to multi-task while consuming large amounts of observational data, overall teaching me how to better observe as a field researcher.

Finally, I hoped to progress in my articulation of environmental conservation. On the boat, I dealt with passengers from all over the world, with varying degrees of English proficiency, age, and understanding of marine science. When I discussed environmental conservation, such as the threats of Red Tide or Entanglement, I learned how to simplify complicated biological and environmental terminology into information that was digestible by a broad audience.

This internship helped solidify that I want to pursue a career in environmental conservation and marine science. I learned that I was incredibly passionate about marine conservation, and loved working in a flexible, dynamic, hands-on environment. I loved working outside conducting fieldwork, solidifying that I want to pursue a career where I can eventually conduct my own research. During our internship, we did a short research presentation about the impacts of marine debris on marine mammals, finding that many feeding behaviors that humpback whales exhibit in their feeding grounds (such as lunge-feeding) put them at direct risk for ingesting marine debris. I am incredibly passionate about the animals that I saw and am considering using the data I collected this summer to write a thesis for my senior year. I don’t know exactly the path that I want to take after I graduate, but I do believe that I want to take a year off in between graduate school to conduct research and broaden my field experience with marine-science.

To any future interns that apply to the New England Aquarium, or specifically as a Whale Watch Intern, I recommend to fully take advantage of the amazing opportunities around you. The NEAq is an amazing institution that provides amazing resources, from career planning to monthly lectures about recent research. You have unbelievable access to so much information about the marine world, don’t be afraid to explore the aquarium or talk to people outside of your department. The naturalists that I got to work with on the boats are all amazing individuals; never be afraid to ask questions and take advantage of the amazing learning opportunity you have in front of you. Finally, allow yourself to become adaptable! Working with wild animals outdoors on boats with 300+ people means that no day is “normal”. Be ready for every day to be different and to expect the unexpected!

I am genuinely sad to leave my summer internship. As the last few weeks wound down, it felt that the whales were exhibiting some crazy new behavior every day and I saw animals like Atlantic White-Sided Dolphin that I hadn’t seen previously in the summer. I was very proud to watch my own progress in identifying individual humpbacks from each other throughout the summer. Towards the end of the season, I was able to identify various humpbacks from simply their tail pattern or dorsal without the help of a camera.

My last day was bittersweet, but it was one of the most magical days on the water – with a fitting rainbow and crazy surface activity in the distance. However, I am thrilled to say that I was invited back in the fall! During the fall semester, I will help train the new fall interns and intern on the boat sporadically.

• Kate Laemmle

August 2 was the last day of my summer at NYU School of Medicine where we presented our research analysis studies. While I am upset my internship has come to an end, I have gained a vast amount of knowledge beneficial for my future endeavors. Before my internship, I had goals to expand on my research data analysis skills and I have done so as an intern,  a member of the Database for Research on Education in Academic Medicine (DREAM) Team. 

In the DREAM Team, I collaborated with a multidisciplinary research team on education of physicians and healthcare professionals. I also analyzed quantitative datasets of patient surveys between a patient’s first visit vs. the second visit with residents in the USP Program using SPSS and R. The USP Program evaluates providers in Bellevue Hospital Center and Gouveneur Health from the perspective of a patient. Actors portray as a standardized patient with a certain medical concern and fill out a checklist evaluating the provider’s performance, patient experience, and functionality of the medical team. The conditions that are reviewed are: asthma, back pain, fatigue, hepatitis B, shoulder & knee pain, well visit. Often providers receive the same case twice over the time period they are with NYU Bellevue and Gouveneur. Actors evaluate their experience with the provider and at the Hospital Clinic. The goal is to see an improvement in performance from the provider and the clinic between the first visit and the second visit. My project was to analyze the USP data per case for providers who received two visits for certain domains: Communication, Patient Activation, Patient Satisfaction.

One additional project I worked on was evaluating OBGYN residents’ performance on Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) by conducting statistical analysis via R and SPSS. OSCE’s are an examination in the Simulation Center (NYSIM) between a learner and a standardized patient (typically an actor) The learner is assessed on their performance and the learner receives feedback via performance-based assessments. OSCE cases cover a variety of situations providers face in the hospital daily. I conducted data abstraction, cleaning, restructuring, merging various datasets, developing infrastructure within the database and calculated summary scores of communication domain. 

Throughout my experience at PrMEIR Scholar Summer Intensive Program, I have developed strong research skills in the field of medicine using my programming knowledge. I have also built a strong network of peers and mentors at NYU School of Medicine. As I embark on my last year of university, I have gained a lot of advice and skills on how to go about finding a career within my interests of Medicine and Computer Science. Working at NYU School of Medicine, I enjoyed the work environment and would love to seek an opportunity in Software Engineering Research in the Department of Medicine. 

If I were to advise students commencing on an internship, I would say to try to find an internship you know integrates your passions and interests. You should work in an environment that allows you to showcase your skills, but also teaches you new techniques in your field of study useful for your future career interests. Also, it is important to make connections in your internship, so you have mentors to help you with your future goals. My summer at NYU School of Medicine PrMEIR Program has come to an end; however, the knowledge and mentors I have attained during my time at this program will stay with me.

Working on a boat is incredibly different than sitting in a traditional classroom at school. My internship is tied to the weather and the behavior of unpredictable wild animals. Often times, thundershowers and torrential down-pours do not stop our whaling adventures, and I have come to learn to be ready for anything. Recording data in brutal wind conditions or spotting for whales with reduced fog visibility has honed my observation skills and my adaptability in the field. That being said, occasionally work is canceled due to massive sea-sick inducing swells and brutal wind, and I feel like I do in school when we get an unexpected snow day.

Whales are wild animals and therefore unpredictable; every day I get to observe them in their natural habitat. As much as we can make predictions about where the whales will be and what they will do, I have been shown many times this summer to never take anything for granted. For example, one day a whale named Diablo appeared right outside of Boston Harbor, 10 miles from where we expected to see her. Another day, we went to an area where whales had been feeding for weeks and found absolutely nothing.

Visitors will sometimes come with sea-world assumptions, and an important takeaway from my internship is to understand how to balance expectation versus reality. While I get to see amazing behaviors frequently, such as breaching or open mouth feeding, some days the whales are less surface active.

An important part of my internship has been learning how to articulate critical messages of environmental conservation about these spectacular animals, and to treat each day as an opportunity to learn something new. Understanding marine mammal physiology and behavior has not only broadened my academic understanding but has allowed me to better understand why whales will behave in certain ways on certain days. Even on “average” days, my internship has provided me opportunities to learn something new every time I go out on the water. For example, just today I got to see a Mola mola for the first time! Mola mola, or Ocean Sunfish, are huge bony fish that look like big dinner tables in the water.

Over the last few months, I have seen myself expand in my comprehension of marine conservation and marine mammal behavior as well as gain field skills, technique, and knowledge through data collection and observation. One of the coolest ways I have been able to track my own progress is through the identification and behavior of humpback whales. I now can recognize many individuals by eyesight. By discerning individuals from each other, I have picked up on subtle behavioral distinctions between humpback whales that I would never have been able to recognize without spending months in the field. The Aquarium has provided an amazing opportunity and network, and I am so happy for this internship that has provided resources for my interest in a marine conservation/biology career.

– Kate Laemmle ’20

 When I was little, I wanted to be a marine biologist. This summer I get to live out that reality as a Marine Mammal Research and Education Intern at the New England Aquarium. The New England Aquarium employs approximately ten whale watch interns over the summer, who are part of a team of hundreds of other volunteers and interns dedicated to the NEA’s mission to protect the blue planet. Every day, my work on the whale watch boats has direct implications to ensure the conservation of these amazing animals.

I go on one or two whale watches a day, each lasting 3-4 hours. My “office” is the wheelhouse of boats with grand names such as Aurora, Sanctuary, or Asteria. My coworkers include a naturalist, who is not only my supervisor on the boat who oversees the data collection, but also the main scientist/researcher.

After the boat leaves the dock in Boston Harbor, it takes us 1 – 1.5 hours to see the whales. During this time, I begin the first part one of my internship: educational outreach. The interns discuss in person with the passengers information about our destination (Stellwagen Bank Natural Marine Sanctuary), or the most common species we are likely to see (humpback whales, minke whales, fin whales). Most passengers have never been on a whale watch, and I spend a large part of the ride explaining questions like why we may see White Atlantic Sided Dolphins, but not orcas, or why Humpback whales only spend time in the bank between mid-March to mid-November. 

Once we begin to approach the whales’ feeding ground, I run back upstairs for the second part of my internship, grabbing a GPS and compass for data collection and research. We don’t use radar or sonar to track the whales as it is harmful to the whales’ hearing. Instead, we find the whales simply using our eyes and the word of other whale watching boats. The naturalist and I stand from an elevated observation area and spot.  Once we see the whales, I record preliminary data like weather, as well as information on the whale’s behavior, location, and identification. When a humpback whale shows its

tail (or fluke), we can actually identify individuals from each other. Their tail pattern is unique like a finger print, enabling the ability to identify individuals from each other using a large naming cataloging system

The data and research we collect helps scientists better understand and protect these animals. For example, boat strikes is the major cause of death for the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whales. Using data on population density collected on whale watches, Boston Harbor moved its shipping lane one degree north, reducing the probability of boat strike by 80%. I plan on potentially doing my own research during this summer, such as studying mother-calf relations or the impact of local marine pollution.

On the way back, I give a more specified talk around the cabins about general conservation. Passing around baleen (what humpbacks use to filter their food) or a vertebra, I answer and discuss questions about biology, hunting policies, climate change, conservation, and history.

I absolutely love my internship. I get to see breath-taking whales every day exhibit amazing behaviors. My goals in the beginning of the summer were to expand my marine science knowledge, gain applicable fieldwork skills, and improve in articulating environmental conservation that I am passionate about. Even in the first few weeks, I have already begun to succeed in my goals through the education of marine mammal biology as well as learning practical skills like LCDing a whale from two miles away.

My mom and brother came to visit me on the 21st! Cajun’s 2019m calf did a lot of cool behaviors that day.

Some photos and a brief summary of all my trips can be found under recent activity on our blog. 

With nervousness, anticipation and excitement, I finally started my summer internship at Blueport Commerce! At first, I didn’t know what to expect because I’ve never had real-world experience related to computer science and I didn’t know if what I’ve learned so far at Brandeis would be enough. However, with the warm welcome I received and the great support my manager has been giving me, the apprehension is slowly drifting away.     

Blueport Commerce is a leading cloud e-commerce platform for furniture, used by the largest retailers in North America. They are located in Boston, MA and are a small company with 51-200 employees. Their main mission is to help furniture retailers grow sales online and in stores as well as provide a better shopping experience for their customers. My main tasks this summer are to implement automated tests with the QA automation team and get exposure to Blueport’s agile work environment and collaborative atmosphere.

So far I have just been getting introduced to what QA is and how test automation works. I have already learned so many new things by working with git and bitbucket, realizing the importance of an agile work environment and engaging myself in the day-to-day tasks of a real company. The QA team is very important in preventing bugs and defects in the product, so I am glad I get the chance to impact the company in a helpful way.

One of my favorite things about Blueport is the people and how friendly and collaborative everyone is. When I first joined, my team took me out for pizza and everyone else also introduced themselves and made me feel welcome. Many people also bring their dogs to work which of course is such a pleasant surprise 🙂

One of my academic goals for this summer is to learn a new programming language and implement a product feature that uses this language. I will achieve this while working with the QA automation team. The engineers at Blueport commerce use C# in their projects so this will be a great opportunity to code in a language I have never worked with before.

Another goal of mine is to strengthen my professional relationships. The people I have met at Blueport have all been very friendly and positive. I am excited to get to know them more by asking about their experiences and career paths. Along with this, a few more interns are joining the company next week so it will also be nice to get the chance to work with other people with a similar path in mind.

I hope to continue to work towards these goals throughout the summer and make full use of the opportunity given to me. Stay tuned for chapter 2!

The early morning following the day that I submitted my first blog post, an earthquake happened in the northern area of Osaka City, a region right south to Kyoto. The magnitude 6.1 earthquake hit Osaka and Kyoto was significantly affected as well. Japan is known for frequent earthquakes, but it was my first time experiencing an earthquake at this level. The earthquake itself lasted approximately 30 seconds, and it took me about 10 seconds just to realize that it was an earthquake.

I was at home while the ground suddenly started “jumping” up and down, and then, moving horizontally. In fact, some of the lab members and I were planning on heading to Hiroshima for an annual genome editing conference at around noontime that day, but all available public transportation  in the region was completely stopped. I managed to get to the lab on foot as usual to meet up with the other members. I did not observe much panics from the faces of people passing by me on the streets. While the lab members were in the lab waiting for the updates on public transportation, we were even talking about staying over in the lab and leave for Hiroshima the next day as it was unknown when the transportation will return normal.

On the Platform of Hiroshima Railway Station
Arriving in Hiroshima in the crowd after 8pm on the day of earthquake

The Materials and My Name Tag for the Conference

The 3-day conference was shortened into 2 days due to the earthquake

The earthquake was not the end of the story, a heavy and constant rainfall hit western Japan beginning on July 6^th. Kamo River and Katsura River in Kyoto were severely flooded and so did many other rivers in western Japan, especially those in the south-western region. A significant numbers of people lost their lives due to the flood and the sequential sediment disaster. According to the news, it was the most devastating rainfall and flood since Japan entered the current era, “Heisei period,” which means it was the most severe flood on record in the past 30 years.

Flooded Kamo River Next to CiRA on July 6th

While I am writing this blog during this long weekend, the famous Gion Festival is going on just outside of the window despite of the record-breaking high temperature these two days.

Besides the busy laboratory work, all these unexpected or expected events have become the spice of a monotonous daily routine. Though I have felt the significant personal growth in a lot of dimensions because of the laboratory part of this experience, the other parts were also the essence. They certainly added diverse colors and flavors to this unique cross-cultural and cross-field internship experience.

For every day I am at work, I tried my best to enjoy and make the most out of it. Indeed, I started my independent works last week after only a month of “intensive training.” Still, I cannot believe that half of my internship has passed already. I am definitely going to miss my life here in Kyoto and at CiRA a lot.

The last day of my internship has gone and past but I can’t help missing the daily routine of working at a place that I have grown to love. With this being my last post, I think it’s appropriate to take a step back and look at the history of the farm and its mission.

During the last few weeks at the farm, we interns got to learn about the history of the farm and the ongoing volunteer efforts from Drumlin’s Volunteer Coordinator. I was fascinated to learn how Drumlin Farm came together from the foresight and charity of a single woman with a dream to keep nature alive and thriving. The story of how Drumlin Farm came to be is a significant and interesting piece of the town of Lincoln’s history. It all started with the building of Gordan Hall in 1915 as a summer home to Louise Ayer Gordan and her first husband. Louise later remarried and became Louise Ayer Gordan Hatheway and willed the property, farmland and surrounding lands to the Mass Audubon society in 1955 with the wish that it would remain a working farm and nature sanctuary in the years to come. From then on, the farm has kept its promise to Louise and is continually advocating for the protection of wildlife and providing local agriculture.

Drumlin’s Volunteer Coordinator also explained how Drumlin Farm has grown with Louise’s mission in mind. She has helped to coordinate various volunteer opportunities within Mass Audubon and the Bobolink Project. The Bobolink Project is a Mass Audubon effort to help protect grassland birds and recuperate their population numbers. Many of these birds are disappearing in the Northeastern U.S. due to hayfield mowing during the Bobolink nesting season. The Bobolink Project provides farmers the financial assistance to delay their crop mowing until the Bobolinks and other grassland birds are fledged (out of the nest). This project is just one example of Mass Audubon’s mission to help preserve and educate about nature.

I feel incredibly lucky to have played a part in this institution’s mission. Drumlin Farm’s Wildlife Sanctuary has taught me how to face my fears and to come to the realization that a future in the veterinary field is possible. With the finale of this internship, I have come out with more knowledge about wildlife care, made connections to help me in the future, and have discovered how to take action in preserving wildlife and nature in my local community. My advice for those of you who haven’t quite figured out what path you want to take when you leave college: I would say to go and explore any internships or volunteer opportunities that even remotely interest you. You never know if an interest is a passing fad or something waiting to be explored as a future. So, go out there, explore your passions and thank you for following our stories throughout this summer!

Hello again! It’s been a while since I last posted but my internship is halfway over and I have learned so much in the past few weeks. Besides the daily routine of cleaning animal enclosures and preparing diets, I have had the chance of learning about a lot of other different aspects of wildlife care, education, and conservation.

I spoke last time about my part in an internship project. I decided to focus on designing and building new enclosures for some of our species here on the farm. Our American kestrel needed a new enclosure design because we had moved some of our animals around into more suitable enclosures. I got the chance to research and design all the new perches and the layout of the interior of the enclosure and then with some help, built them. I learned that the falcons needed flat perches to rest on as well as rounded perches that mimicked what they would find in nature. Our kestrel at the sanctuary had a prior wing injury so she has limited flight and needed a lot of low lying perches in order for her to climb around. With all this new research about enclosure designs, I have come to appreciate how difficult it is to keep captive wildlife and be able to care for them so that they are able to live comfortably.

One amazing opportunity that this internship allows for is the chance to handle some of the animals at the wildlife sanctuary. All the interns that come through Drumlin’s Wildlife Care get a chance to do some

raptor handling under the supervision of our amazing Wildlife Program Coordinator, Flavio. Raptor handling entails being able to take a bird of prey or a raptor out of their enclosure and keep them on a gloved hand for educational presentations and then bring them back into their respective enclosures. I have been able to work with one of our broad-winged hawks and a screech owl here at the sanctuary. These birds have all been trained to be handled in such a manner and we always handle the animals with their safety and level of stress in mind.

In our downtime, interns also get the chance to learn more about Drumlin Farm as an institution and all the different fields of study and professions that go into the everyday management at Drumlin Farm. We got the chance to meet with Senior Naturalist, Tia and Visitor Education Manager, Sandy.

Talking with Tia, we learned about the efforts of conservation, especially in the lens of keeping invasive species in check. We helped clear out black swallow-wort, an invasive species native to Europe, in a small field on the farm. Tia explained how the swallow-wort plants were outcompeting and reducing the number of local species in the area. Swallow-worts are especially detrimental to monarch butterflies as female butterflies lay their eggs on milkweed which looks remarkably similar to the black swallow-wort, but monarch caterpillars cannot feed on black swallow-wort, leading to declining monarch populations.

We also met with Drumlin Farm’s Visitor Education Manager, Sandy. Sandy walked us through the daily programs that happen on the farm and what a schedule for teachers that work with the farm looks like. Visitor education programs often showcase conservation and biodiversity efforts that the visitors do not immediately see. There are programs about different bird wings, the different weasel species of America and, of course, animal exhibition shows in which a teacher will take out one of our wildlife species and talk about that animal’s habitat, eating habits and their importance to the New England ecosystem. It was a very enlightening experience and Sandy even hinted at having the interns do some animal showcasing in the future as well!

Being able to see all the different parts of how the wildlife sanctuary work and how the farm functions has been extremely educational and I’ve had so much fun learning and gaining experience working in this field.

Here at Schepens Eye Research Institute (SERI) in Boston, I have been working on four research projects. In the first project, we are investigating the relationship between visual impairment and auditory distraction as well as the effects of age on these interactions. In order to test this, we have subjects from two different age groups (young = 20-40, old = 60+) drive in our driving simulator (see picture above) while wearing goggles that simulate visual impairment and performing an auditory distraction task. The visual impairment goggles use dispersion filters to blur vision and simulate eye conditions such as cataracts. The auditory task involves listening to an audio book and repeating back certain words (such as “the”) every time they are said. This is a lot harder than it seems. Try it at home! But not while driving. During these drives, pedestrians appear, and the driver must honk each time they see one. Response times are recorded as well as data about the control and motion of the vehicle. [Note: If you or someone you know is a current driver in the Boston area, age 60+, you qualify to participate. We are still recruiting. Contact me.]

The second project I am helping with is related to the first. In this project, we use the same auditory task, but we leave out the goggles so that we can track head and eye movement. Our eye tracking device is unable to track eyes through the dispersion filters on the goggles, so in order to examine the effects of auditory distraction on gaze movements we must do without the goggles. The eye tracking device utilizes six cameras and infrared lights around the simulator. The data we receive from this is in the form of graphs of head and gaze movements surrounding pedestrian events. Here is an example of one of these plots:

The third project I am helping with involves driving with a bioptic telescope, a device attached to glasses that people with visual impairments may use to help them drive and read street signs (see picture below). Unfortunately, the telescope creates a ring-shaped blind spot around that impairs vision. Therefore, during our experimental drives, we have signs that participants look at through the telescope and honk at pedestrians they see. We then examine the timing of how the head and eyes move to look through the telescope as part of a bigger study that examines the effect of this blind spot on pedestrian detection.

In these three projects, I help to run subjects through our experiments, which involves obtaining consent, doing vision measures (including visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and central visual field), and running them through the drives in the simulator. I also help to process and analyze the data we collect.

The final project I am working on is a telephone questionnaire that we are designing in order to gather information about how much drivers with visual impairments use in-vehicle assistive technologies (such as cruise control) and whether or not these devices are helpful. This project is in the beginning stages, and I have been helping to design the questionnaire, fill out paperwork, and pilot the questionnaire to make it clear and usable.

So far, I have been having a lot of fun and have learned a great deal about each step of the clinical research process. During my final few weeks, I hope to continue running subjects and learning more about data analysis.

For more information about the lab, visit the lab’s website here: http://bowerslab.eye.hms.harvard.edu/

If you are in the Boston area and are interested in participating in experiments here, let me know!

My name is Andrea Bolduc and I am a rising sophomore studying Politics, Legal Studies, and French Language. This summer I am interning at the Worcester County District Attorney’s Office in Worcester, Massachusetts. I am working in Community Outreach and have also been paired with an Assistant District Attorney.

The DA’s Office has two missions: to seek justice for the victims of crime through fair prosecutions and to prevent crime through community outreach programs.  The DA’s Office prosecutes felonies and

misdemeanors, such as arson, homicide, domestic and/or child abuse, gang activities, and financial crimes. Several specialized units, led by Assistant District Attorneys (ADAs), work together to prosecute cases in court.  The DA’s Office is active in community outreach programs and offers quality victim advocacy efforts.

For community outreach, myself and several other interns contact schools and police stations across Worcester County and try to establish outreach programs for all age groups on topics ranging from bullying prevention to the opioid crisis. This past week, we traveled to a local Boys and Girls Club and helped the Outreach Coordinator give a presentation on bullying prevention and cyber safety to several groups of kids.

It was interesting to see how, even though the message (follow the Golden Rule, telling a trusted adult is not the same thing as being a “tattle-tale”, never disclose even seemingly insignificant information about yourself to a stranger online, etc.) was consistent across age groups, the delivery evolved as the audience matured. This demonstrates the importance of reaching out to community members of all ages as a means of prevention. By establishing a positive relationship with the community, the DA’s Office is able to equip even the youngest child with the tools to keep themselves and others safe.

I also serve as an aid to an Assistant District Attorney. Their job is to prosecute cases on behalf of the Commonwealth. My ADA focuses on cases that appear in the Central District Court. Each ADA will be assigned around 200 cases per year, so there is a lot of work to do to prepare for each one. I assist my ADA in pretrial preparation, where I help them organize discovery (police reports on the incident, relevant documents and information about the defendant), and evidence. Because a fair trial is essential, the prosecution and defense are in constant communication with one another during preparation. If my ADA doesn’t need any specific task done at the moment, I can assist other ADAs, which means that I have been getting exposure to a breadth of different cases. I can also observe different proceedings around the courthouse, such as arraignments, trials, and sentencing. The amount of work that goes into ensuring a fair trial for each defendant, while also maintaining a commitment to the laws that make our society safer, has given me a greater appreciation for our legal system.

My goal for this internship is to develop an understanding of how the law works in practice. By helping lawyers conduct research for their specific cases, it is my hope that my time at the DA’s Office will also provide me with some direction in terms of the careers through which to pursue my interests. I have always wanted to be involved in an actual case, and this summer I have the opportunity to immerse myself in legal research and trial preparation.

Stay up to date with the work that the DA’s Office does in the community and read up on cases currently making their way through the court!

After being involved in undergraduate research for almost three years, working as a Japanese peer tutor for 2 years, completing a clinical research project abroad in Denmark, and browsing and researching different websites for hundred and thousand hours, I am finally here: Center of iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) at Kyoto University in Japan.

Outside View Of the 1st Building of CiRA

I arrived in Kyoto on June 8th, the Friday before the week I officially started my work at CiRA. My mentor, Peter Gee, offered to pick me up on the platform of the Kyoto Railway Station even though it was past 9pm right before the weekend. He walked me to the hostel that I booked for a temporary stay before I moved to the long-term apartment the next morning. He was so nice that he even bought me a bottle of iced tea and some snacks in case that I was thirsty or hungry. I was so grateful for his help that allowed me to settle in a new city very quickly and smoothly.

On Monday morning, Peter came to the place that I will be staying at for the next 2-months and we walked to CiRA together. Everything that I have seen in documentaries and on TV numerous times were all right in front of my eyes. Peter quickly showed me around the building and introduced me to the other lab members in the Hotta Lab. Everyone I met on the first day, including those from on the labs, was very nice and gave me a warm welcome. Indeed, I was very nervous going to work on that day. I was stressed about meeting and remembering a lot of new people while getting oriented in the lab in order to start working as soon as possible. With lots of new information and knowledge, that day definitely turned out to be intensive and heavy-loaded for me, but I was glad that I was able to start the experiments and to work with actual cell lines that we will need data from on the first day.

I felt extremely supported and trusted being the youngest student researcher in the lab. Peter carefully went through the possible projects and experiments I could do in these two months and asked for my thoughts and opinions on the first day. He said that the lab hopes for me to have an experience where I learn the knowledge and techniques that will be the most useful and beneficial for me. We decided that I will be working on not only the main focus of the lab,  the induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)  patients, but also on differentiating cortical neurons, which is closely related to my neuroscience major, previous research experience, and the research that I would like to pursue in the future.

One of the Exits of the Closest Station Next to CiRAMany People Working at CiRA or Other Facilities of Kyoto U as well as Students of KU Get to School from Here Every Morning

Starting from the second day, the remaining 4 days of the first week were all packed with experiments, but I was much more relaxed compared to the first day. Surprisingly, while I still felt like I was dreaming, I adapted to life in Kyoto and in the Hotta Lab quickly.  Although I received extensive mentorship and support from the lab members throughout the week, I was also given significant freedom to think and work independently just like an experienced researcher. It was a great research, academic and cultural environment where everybody is open for discussions and different opinions. I could hear active conversations not only in Japanese but also in English as a significant amount of people working at CiRA came from all over the world.

Along with Dr. Akitsu Hotta, the principle investigator in charge of the lab, the lab held a welcome party for me on Wednesday night. It was a casual pizza night where we got the chance to learn about each other a lot outside of work。

Part of the Drinks and Pizzas from the Welcome PartyIt has only been a week since I started my work at CiRA, but I have learned so much academically and experienced many new things in daily life as well.

– Xiou Wang

Through my internship at Encyclopedia of Life, I gained great insight into biodiversity documentation, project management, and real-life work experience. I learned a lot about citizen science through classes at Brandeis, but I had not had many opportunities to see the behind the scenes operations of a citizen science organization and learn how these organization use their platform to engage the public. Interning at EOL provided me with a great opportunity to see these things first hand and make an impact in the organization.

My favorite part about my internship was taking everything I learned in my environmental studies classes and working with a great group of people to increase environmental education and documenting the biodiversity living around us. Although just in the beginning stages, the Boston challenge that I am helping to plan will bring together people from all across the area and get people outside to observe the nature around them. Last year’s challenge was a success and I hope to continue that trend and see Boston as a front runner.

For students interested in interning at a citizen science organization like EOL, I would recommend really taking ownership of projects assigned to you and making the most out of the experience. One of the great things about working for a smaller office is that there is a large opportunity to work on projects that interest you, and it is easy to communicate with different members of the team. Whenever I had a question, other team members were really receptive and helpful. Also, even though I was intern, the work that I was doing had an impact on the organization and I know it will help their current efforts. Asking questions is one of the best ways to learn on a job and the people in the office where more than willing to provide advice.

I am most proud of working with a wonderful group of Boston area organizations invested in increasing biodiversity documentation and environmental education awareness. Working with these organizations allowed me to see all the different opportunities that are available in the citizen science field and what goes behind making these projects possible. It also helped increase my confidence when running meetings and learning how a small office setting works.

Even if I don’t go into the citizen science field, I will still take away an appreciation for the Earth’s biodiversity and EOL’s mission to capture as much of it as they can. I am appreciative to have had this opportunity and the real world experience it gave me.

Gerrianna Cohen ’18

As a psychology major, my academic goal this summer in my internship was to expand my knowledge of developmental psychobiology and psychopathology through understanding the current state and gaps of the clinical and developmental neuroscience literature. In the weekly lab meetings and clinical case conferences that I attended, there were presentations by lab members on articles on psychopathology and current projects. I reached my goal through exposure to current research in these meetings as well as through engaging in discussions with lab members and academics. I was assigned to present a research article in one of the lab meetings, which gave me more exposure to the literature, and helped me improve my presentation skills. I thought the experience helped me grow so much that I requested to present another article, and it really helped me with gaining confidence.

Clinical assessment is a very essential part of child clinical psychology and this internship gave me the opportunity of training in clinical assessment and administering tests which is very rare for undergraduate students. I administered and scored the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence-Second 
Edition (WASI-II) to children, adolescents, and adults as well as administered questionnaires about anxiety. I definitely reached my goal through this exposure to clinical assessment questionnaires and through entering information collected from clinical interviews. I was exposed to patients with different levels of affective symptomatology, trauma exposure, resilience, emotion regulation, stress, family functioning, and executive control. Anxiety Disorders are the most common mental illnesses, and being exposed to diagnosis, learning about assessment tools, and contributing to the research for a very promising future treatment method for these disorders was very exciting and useful for my future career. Through participation in this internship I realized that I am specifically very interested in diagnosis and treatment of anxiety disorders and depression in children and adolescents.

Through administering intelligence tests, helping anxious and non-anxious children, adolescents, and adults feel comfortable, working directly with participants to ensure positive experiences throughout their participation, and through phone screens I reached my goal of improving my communication skills with people in general.

I would advise anyone who is looking for a Research Assistant internship in the field of psychology to email the Principal Investigators of labs.   You should choose the area that you are the most interested in and make sure you reflect your enthusiasm about the research and the lab in your email. When you are working in the lab environment, I learned that it is very important to look for more responsibility and to ask for the specific things that you want to be exposed to. I really liked working at Yale University as an institution because they really cared about the interns in terms of supervision and in terms of becoming a part of the culture of the university. They were also very careful about patient/participant confidentiality, which made me feel like a part of a serious health care facility. I would recommend this internship and I would love to do it all over again! Thank you Hiatt Career Center for giving me this opportunity!

Selen Amado  ’18

So far, my internship at the Clinical Affective Neuroscience and Development lab has been an amazing experience. I have always loved the lab environment, a place where everyone is continually learning and helping each other grow, but this lab has a particularly great environment. Everyone is supportive of each other, the graduate students are a source of positivity and advice for the interns and the lab manager is always looking out for the interns to get more out of the internship.

It is very different to work as a summer intern research assistant compared to being a research assistant during the year. As a summer intern, I can see what a full time research assistant job would be like in terms of the hours and work that is done. I am a part of a team, and I see how, in the world of work, interactions with your co-workers are extremely important and valuable. It is different from the academic life in that you are not working for your own goals and achievements, you are working with people for a common goal. As a person who likes working in a team, I am really enjoying this aspect of the work.

A career in child clinical psychology requires a very long process starting from an undergraduate psychology degree to the postgraduate internship after your PhD. First of all, the experiences you have as an undergraduate majoring in psychology are very important. In order to be a good candidate for getting accepted to a PhD program in clinical psychology, which is what I want to do in the future, you need to have a lot of experience in the research field. This internship is giving me exposure to clinical research in the field of anxiety disorders and also giving me exposure to anxiety disorders in children. It is the most challenging lab I worked at, and I had the ability to get trained on things that will be extremely important in my future career as well as in future jobs right after college. I  administer intelligence tests, trauma questionnaires and anxiety inventories. These skills will help me in my future career. Another experience that is important to have in undergrad is clinical experience with children. This internship is giving me the opportunity to interact with healthy children and children with anxiety disorders. It is an amazing chance to improve my communication skills with children and their parents. This has been one of the best aspects of this internship and I think it will give me an advantage in the future when applying to jobs.

Selen Amado ’18

Experiencing the Tony Awards, from the red carpet to the hottest after party at the Carlyle Hotel, was nothing less than absolutely fantastic! It always seemed like a distant dream to me and there I was, attending the same party as so many of my idols. Even though it was about a month ago, it’s still crazy to think that I was in the same room as celebrities such as Bette Midler, Olivia Wilde, Ben Platt, Sally Field, Anna Kendrick, Kevin Spacey, Darren Criss, Corey Cott, and about four hundred others. By the time I went to bed, I had been awake for over 20 hours but I didn’t even feel tired. I was very grateful for all of the adrenaline I was running on! That following week, the interns were kept very busy as we archived every mention of our shows from the Tony Awards on every news and media outlet, along with preparing for the opening night of “1984,” a new Broadway play based on George Orwell’s book adapted by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan. “1984” recently premiered on June 22^nd, so there was very little time after the Tony Awards to get everything together. Much of our time was spent on picking up and preparing tickets and press lists for the following week.

At the beginning of July, I moved into an apartment only four blocks from my office, which has cut my 2 hour commute into 10 minutes! I love being so close to work because I’m not exhausted while there and can really focus on what I’m doing. I’m also able to see many shows on Broadway since I live so close which is how I love to spend my evenings.

Soon we will be preparing for the opening of Michael Moore’s new play, “The Terms of My Surrender.” I feel more prepared having already done work for the opening of “1984” and hope that I will be able to help even more than before. The summer is typically a very slow time for the Broadway world but we are lucky enough to be part of two shows that begin during the summer.

Working with DKC/O&M has solidified my desire to go into Arts Administration after college. Since we don’t offer courses around Arts Administration at Brandeis, I really didn’t know what it was or that it was even an option for me. I am very grateful for my internship because it is very difficult to truly learn what it is a press agent does in an academic setting. So much of the work is hands on and it’s great to be able to get that experience with DKC/O&M. Getting to see how different situations are handled first hand is invaluable. I love the environment I’m in, the people I’m working with, the work I’m doing, and the experiences I am lucky enough to have. If you find yourself interested in working in Arts Administration, my suggestion is that you apply for every internship you can get your hands on. The theater community, especially in New York, is so small and close knit that no matter where you end up, you’ll be connecting and working with people from all different areas of Arts Administration. You’ll make extremely valuable connections and it can’t hurt to try something different than what we’re always studying in school!

I ended my internship working with the Program Services and Survey department at FCD. For the survey department, I finished the lit review I was working on for background information about parental supervision and permission to drink and supply at home. Hopefully they can use what I have researched to help with the publication of some of their research that they have already done using the surveys they give to school and the data they have collected from it. I also helped my supervisor in the survey department scan some of the last surveys they got from the 2016-2017 school year using their scantron.

For program services, I completed a few assignments and I was able to work with the high school interns that arrived in July. They are working on these videos that FCD will send to individuals that have signed up for the weekly newsletter. Each video talks about a certain topic, for example, one of them they talk about normative beliefs and they are also hoping to be able to interview a prevention specialist. I met with them to talk about some of their ideas and sat in on one of their practices to give them a different perspective. It was  interesting to get their perspective of what they thought of FCD as high school students, which is part of the grade level that FCD works with. In addition, I looked over a research update one of the other college students worked on earlier this summer and contributed a bit of data that I found from my research on parental supervision of alcohol. I provided some of my ideas and opinions on it and our supervisor will attempt to use what she created and some of the edits I did to make a finalized version of this. I also worked on a PowerPoint that prevention specialists will be able to use as one of their resource. This was actually a request from one of them after one of their students asked them what the inside of a human brain looks like after using substances. FCD wanted to give accurate data but also did not want to use scare tactics and say things like “these are holes in your brain” when really it is just less blood flow to certain areas. I found some images like this one under the alcohol section. I used these images to create a PowerPoint and wrote some summaries and discussion questions for the prevention specialists to use.

Coming into this internship, I did not have the most specific goals and I think that was good because I came in with an open mind and did not think that only certain things were worthwhile to do. I had wanted to learn more about prevention in general because that is what FCD specialize in. I definitely think I met that goal after interning there this summer. They were open to questions and were so willing to explain things to me about FCD. I also wanted to get a better sense of how a health-related organization is run. I was able to work in all four of the departments over the summer and that gave me a good idea of how each department is critical and necessary to a health organization. I liked having this background internship where the prevention specialists are the ones who talk to the schools while people at the administrative building at FCD provide them with the support they need to make everything work and run smoothly. I wanted to see how a public health organization can affect the community it works with. Seeing how many schools have worked with FCD and reading student comments about FCD showed how much they have impacted the lives of these students.

I still am not quite sure of what I want to do after graduation. I don’t know if it made me want to work specifically in a substance abuse prevention organization even though I enjoyed my time at FCD immensely. At the same time, FCD is so unique, I don’t think I will find something that is quite like it. I did enjoy working at this small non-profit and I felt welcomed into their community. I have always known I do like working individually for the most part on assignments. But after interning at FCD, I realized I do like being able to bounce ideas of my supervisors and fellow interns have the space and ability to ask questions and get suggestions. One thing I noticed is that sometimes I just have a hard time getting started with a new assignment or project. I have this feeling of not wanting to mess it up already and just not being very confident in myself to produce exactly what my supervisor is expecting. After FCD, I realized that sometimes I just have to make the plunge and start it after I have asked all the clarifying questions, and it will usually turn out fine.

I think that a student who wants to intern at FCD should know that the people who work there welcome all questions that you have. They encourage interns to ask questions and to question things they do in order to learn. They value an intern’s input and will ask for their opinions and ideas. At FCD, an intern has to realize this is a smaller organization and people are very passionate and motivated about the work they do. Prevention, to them, is not just a class but an environment they hope to create in communities. There will be independent work but supervisors are always willing to help and ask questions. I think in these health non-profits in general, people have to realize, for the most part, the people who work there are extremely passionate about the mission of their organization. At these smaller non-profits, everyone has to help with everything. Although my supervisors and other all helped when the need arose. I think that is something people have to realize when going to work at a smaller organization; although you may be going in to do something specific, you also have to help with the general running of the organization.

I think the thing that I am most proud about after this internship is the fact that I was able to produce things that was not just for an academic grade but could actually be used in the real world. I’m just really glad I was able to help the organization with their mission. I think it really helped that my supervisors were always willing to explain to me why I was doing something so it never felt like I was just given a random task to do as busy work. Knowing why I did something gave it value. I am proud that, for example, the intern evaluation I made for FCD will be used in the future and the PowerPoint I made could be something a prevention specialist might use in the classroom in some distant school. FCD was a lovely organization and I am so glad I found them and that I was accepted into their organization with so much welcome and support.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been diving deep into planning for the City Nature Challenge for 2018. The CNC is a week long competition between cities across the nation to document the most biodiversity in their area. It is an exciting way to get the public outside and observing the local life around them. This year, the competition is expanding all over the world with participants in six continents in over 60 cities. I am confident the Boston area will be a top contender.

For the Encyclopedia of Life, we are focusing on creating educational materials to support high school educators and students during the challenge. The Learning and Education group at EOL has developed many resources throughout the years focused on getting students involved in citizen science and open science. My personal favorite is the species cards that can be used out in the field or in EOL created lesson plans. The hope of getting students involved is to spark interest in the environment and become inspired to change some of the issues facing us today. If students can feel a connection with nature then they will feel more likely to protect it.

Our goal for the CNC is to create a comprehensive source of materials including lessons plans, species cards, and tutorials that formal and informal educators can use to get their students outside making observations that contribute to science. With these materials, students will feel empowered to make meaningful observations and contribute to a larger database of species data. Scientists then can use this data in research and published papers, which I think is pretty cool.

One of my favorite moments so far from my internship was leading a group meeting with three other Boston area organizations. I have been communicating with this group throughout the summer and it was exciting to talk with them again. Our role as a committee in the CNC is to generate interest in the Boston area and get people excited to participate. We have to think about things like communication, fundraising, and outreach to other local organizations to make this year a success. It is fun working with them and learning about how a committee works.

Overall, I have been enjoying my time here at EOL and am looking forward to my last few weeks of the summer. National plans for the 2018 CNC are on their way and I am making sure the Boston area is prepared and ready to go. As for the education plans, I am excited to see how many students and educators we can reach to use our materials!

Gerrianna Cohen ‘18

It is a bit more than halfway through my internship and I have been enjoying my time at FCD immensely. As mentioned in my first blog post, for the first half of my internship, I worked with Client Relations and Administration. One of the main things I did for my supervisor in Client Relations was look for community coalitions in different parts of the U.S. FCD has worked with substance abuse prevention community coalitions in the past, but they wanted to expand their relationships and see if they could cultivate more contacts with these different groups. I focused on finding groups in New England, New York, California and the Chicago area and tried to find their contact information and contact person for my supervisor in Client Relations.

In Administration there were a few projects that I was involved in. I consolidated line items on their financial statement that Hezelden sends over to them monthly. I did that for 2016 and part of 2017. That involved spreadsheets and moments of panic when the totals I found for each month did not match up to the financial statements we received, which led to backtracking and trying to see where I entered the wrong amounts. I was also tasked to do was create a form for interns to evaluate their internships and to foster discussion between a supervisor and their intern. FCD has had interns in the past but had never had that many. This year, there were three interns including me. Two of them have left but two high school interns will be coming in. The director of FCD wants to make internships more systematic and to create a way to evaluate both the interns and allow interns to evaluate their experience at this organization. I was sent a few links that had information about evaluation forms schools used and some other examples that businesses had. I did some of my own research and then created an evaluation form based on these examples. It is still in the working stages but they have used it with the two interns that have left and we will see if they have any comments on it.

The second half of my internship I will be working with Program Services and Surveys. From what I have been told, I think I might be helping with the editing and updating of some of the educational materials they use in the classroom and I might be working with the high school interns.

I worked with Surveys this past week. The first day, I was introduced to the survey they give to students whose school opt to do it. After the data is collected, the results are given back to the schools. I learned about how it was created and how schools might use the data. I also looked at some of the posters they have presented at the APHA using data they have collected. One of the first assignments I will be doing is a literature review. Individuals at FCD have presented their findings about adult supervision when using alcohol and other substances and how that affects usage. It seems that contrary to what is widely believed, adult supervision may be protective in short term effects but long term effects of usage are not protected against. Their findings are summarized here. I will be looking more in depth about this and hopefully do a literature review about it.

Interning at FCD is different from school and it so far has been a very good experience. I like not having a structured day and just having a list of tasks that I have to do per day. I can divide up my own time much more easily and it just feels easier as time management goes. There is also a lot of collaboration in this organization. It might be because it is a smaller one, but I often hear people calling to each other from their rooms to ask questions or solicit advice from each other. To me it is just interesting that individuals who specialize in different departments and areas can come together and drive FCD’s mission forward. Being only one of the three interns, and for a week, the only one, I also feel like they give me a lot of time and space to ask them questions. I can just walk into their office a lot of the time, or they will come visit mine, and we can just sit down and talk. I ask them about FCD, about public health issues and even about how they got to where they are and they are always so open and encouraging. I never feel suffocated here, or mollycoddled, but I never feel intimidated when I have questions to ask; I really enjoy the freedom I am getting at this internship to not only do the tasks I have been assigned but also to ask questions and learn from them.

I also have felt immediately welcomed into their group. During a few of the group meetings they have once a week, I have sat in and the director of FCD has always asked how I was and for my opinions about different topics or problems they are discussing. I am always allowed to jump into the discussion if I have any input or questions and it has made this internship a very comfortable experience. I have been even allowed to sit in on in person interviews and a phone interview for prevention specialists. They have asked for my opinion about each one, and if I don’t talk, the director will ask me to speak and give some feedback.

At this internship, I do think I have been learning and gaining some new skills that I can definitely use in the future. In general, I do think my organization skills have increased so much after having to keep track of so many files and line items when making spreadsheets. I also have learned how to be more deliberate and precise with my wording when creating documents for them. When I listen to how they talk about things, they pay so much attention to the wording of what other people say and how they say things. Having a proper tone and using the right words is not some new idea for me exactly, but the precision they have makes me think twice about how I word things now; it just never hit me exactly how much it can affect how something is seen or presented. I also think that sitting in on interviews has given me evidence that being deliberate and precise is so important. Being able to sit in on these interviews has enlightened me on how interviewers look at a potential candidate during an interview and what things are liked and what things are frowned upon in this setting. A bit more than halfway through my internship, I am having an incredible time at FCD and I definitely believe that the rest of my time will be just as enjoyable and will be a great learning experience.

Working in a basic science biomedical research laboratory within the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School[i] has been an incredibly exciting experience.  I started to work in the Lab two weeks ago, located within the Center for Life Science in the heart of the Longwood Medical area.  Since I worked in this same Laboratory during the Summer of 2016, I was welcomed into the research environment, and was able to pick up where I left off last summer.  After recently completing animal research facility training, I began working with laboratory mice, focusing on a knockout (KO) mouse strain of the major hepatic (liver) endogenous hydrogen sulfide producing enzyme, cystathionine gamma lyase (CGL).  The Lab I work in is interested in the regulation of human metabolism by master endocrine regulator, thyroid hormone.  Thus, I have been investigating the relationship between thyroid hormone and endogenous hydrogen sulfide production capacity, with an emphasis on extension of longevity using mouse models.

Inside the laboratory, much of my work consists of analyzing key gene expression and protein expression levels between wildtype (WT) control mice and CGLKO mice through various physiological states.  My research consists of dissecting mouse tissue ex vivo, performing an RNA extraction from that tissue type (i.e., liver tissue, brown adipose tissue, etc.), running a reverse transcriptase quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR)[ii] using several key gene markers, and performing statistical tests on differences in gene expression levels between WT and CGLKO mice.  For proteomic analysis, I perform Western Blots[iii] and statistical tests to establish potential differential protein expression in CGLKO mice.  Once I have gathered meaningful data, I present the results informally to the post-doctoral fellow I work alongside and to my Principal Investigator (PI).  However, living systems are complex, and bewilderment can punctuate results.  At these times, I turn to scientific journals for answers.

Biomedical literature publications, such as Brent et al. 2014[iv], have guided me through the complex physiology of thyroid endocrine regulation.  As an incoming third year undergraduate student, dissecting complex signaling pathways with my current learning foundation is a daunting task, especially considering the wealth of knowledge and graduate degrees that my co-workers possess.  However, my co-workers and PI have been and continue to be excellent learning resources.  Bouncing theories back and forth with the post-doctoral research fellow I work alongside is a daily occurrence.  This collaborative environment is characterized by persistent questioning of results and interpretations, which has filled my scientific soul with joy.  This stands in stark contrast to undergraduate classes, where the measure of performance is reflective of the individual, rather than a research team.

Looking forward, the skills I am learning, both in molecular methods and thinking as an experimentalist, will bolster my ability to succeed as a Biology major at Brandeis, and as physician scientist in the future.  I wish to exit this summer with the framework to think as a biomedical researcher, with the ultimate goal of generating meaningful research that can mitigate human suffering.  This can be easy to lose track of in the busyness of a lab, but I hope this goal remains tethered to my being; science for the common good.

[i] Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. 2017. Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. Accessed on June 4.

http://www.bidmc.org/Centers-and-Departments/Departments/Medicine/Divisions/Endocrinology.aspx

[ii] ThermoFisher Scientific. Basic Principles of RT-qPCR: Introduction to RT-qPCR. Accessed on June 4.

https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/brands/thermo-scientific/molecular-biology/molecular-biology-learning-center/molecular-biology-resource-library/basic-principles-rt-qpcr.html

[iii] ThermoFisher Scientific. Overview of Western Blotting. Accessed on June 4.

https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/life-science/protein-biology/protein-biology-learning-center/protein-biology-resource-library/pierce-protein-methods/overview-western-blotting.html

[iv] Mullur, R., Liu, Y.Y., Brent, G.A. 2014. Thyroid hormone regulation of metabolism. Physiol. Rev. 94(2): 355-382.

Josh Lepson