We’re taking time to get to know the members of the GSA’s Early Career Scientist Committees. Join us to learn more about our early career scientist advocates.

Caroline Muirhead
Communication and Outreach Subcommittee
Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Research Interest

I didn’t always know I wanted to make science my career. In fact, I started college as an engineering major. And while I still have a love of math, I realized in my junior year of college that my main interest was in science. I added biology as a double major and dipped my feet into biology research. Between junior and senior year of college I worked in the Weathers lab at Worcester Polytechnic Insitute studying Artemisia annua, a plant that produces the antimalarial drug artemisinin. After college, I worked at a small biotech company before deciding I wanted to attend graduate school.

Since joining graduate school, I’ve become a C. elegans researcher. I work in a systems neuroscience lab where I research how worms respond to sensory cues. Worms secrete chemicals called ascarosides to communicate. We use these ascarosides to study sensation in worms. We ask questions like, why do some worms respond in different ways to the same ascaroside? Or which neurons and receptors are sensing this chemical? My project is about how worms make behavioral decisions in response to ascarosides. Put simply, if I expose the worms to a positive and a negative stimulus at the same time, how will they respond? Either the negative or positive cue will need to take precedent. I want to know what the neurons are doing when the worms make this choice. I think this is a really interesting question because it’s something that we encounter all the time! Think about how often you sense more than one thing at the same time and your brain is able to make a choice about how to respond. The interesting part about studying this with worms is that we can figure out what is going on at the cellular level – a task that would be impossible in a complex organism.  

As a PhD-trained scientist, you have many career options. What interests you the most?

While I’ve really been enjoying conducting research, my main interest is teaching. This past year, I had the opportunity to participate in the ASPIRE fellowship program. This fellowship pairs graduate students with community college professors at a local community college. I was mentored by a professor at Quinsigamond Community College. I was able to work with one of the introductory biology classes during lab sections and complete a few guest lectures. I had a lot of fun, and I really liked the students! Additionally, I got to talk to my mentor about what it was like being a professor at a community college. I had a very positive experience in the ASPIRE fellowship program, and it made me interested in teaching at a community college.    

I’m also open to other opportunities! In college, I volunteered at the EcoTarium, a science and nature museum in Worcester. I’ve always had a love for nature and science museums, so I could always see myself working at a science museum.

Finally, I’ve been enjoying my research and worms. So you never know, I may stay in research for some time after graduating and complete a post doc position. Careers are long, and I hope to enjoy many things over the course of mine.

In addition to your research, how do you want to advance the scientific enterprise?

I hope to interest new minds in science and STEM. I’m passionate about this because young students are the next generation of scientists.

This summer, I ran the Frontier’s summer camp at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. This is a two week long camp for high school students interested in science. We spent the first week of camp learning about neuroscience and working with C. elegans in the lab. During the second week of camp, students conducted their own experiments. It was a lot of fun, and I loved seeing the creativity of the students! In past summers, I’ve run other science summer camps for slightly younger students. I even got to run a camp over Zoom during the pandemic. It was a challenge—we had to ship student lab materials so that they could do lab stuff at home—but overall, it was great that we were still able to teach students science skills remotely. When I was in high school, I participated in science summer camps, and it sparked my interest in STEM. These camps are important for students to start exploring different scientific areas. I hope to continue participating in summer camps that drive students towards STEM fields.

I’ve also served as a mentor for the Women’s Research and Mentorship Program (WRAMP) at my university. I worked in a group with an undergraduate student and two high schoolers on a small research project in the lab. Although this project involved research, the main purpose of the program was to mentor the students and teach them about how research works. I think this project was a success because after WRAMP, one of the high school students was awarded funding to work in our lab through the Massachusetts Life Science Center. She accomplished a lot through the summer and continued as a volunteer in our lab during the school year. Now, she’s continuing scientific research in college. I’m so proud of her, and I’m really happy that I was her WRAMP mentor! I love seeing a student enjoy research enough to continue it. I hope that I am able to mentor more students in a lab setting.

As a leader within the Genetics Society of America, what do you hope to accomplish?

As part of my work with communications and outreach subcommittee, I’m really hoping to do outreach to high school students about scientific research during the school year. I think back to myself as a high schooler, and I realize I had no idea about all of the different model organisms researchers use. I understood why people worked with mice, but I had no idea about all of important research people do in flies, worms, yeast, and beyond. And now, as a worm researcher, I realize how important non-mouse model organisms are too. This year, I plan to talk to high school students about the different types of research that is possible in these models. This way, when these high school students start college and want to join a lab, they’ll have a better understanding of what these labs might be doing.

Other members of my subcommittee have participated in similar types of outreach where they talk to students about model organisms. They’ve offered to help make slides and review my materials to make sure it’s understandable to high school students. They’ve also helped with avenues of connecting to high school teachers that might be interested in having a scientist come speak in their school.  

I also hope to gain more presentation and conference experience through GSA. The first GSA conference I attended was a virtual conference hosted during the first summer of the pandemic. It was nice to still hear other research virtually. Last summer, I attended the International C. elegans Conference in Scotland. I had the opportunity to meet other enthusiastic and creative scientists. I especially enjoyed the poster sessions where I can talk to people one-on-one about their research. Overall, attending the GSA conference was an enriching experience, and I hope to continue honing my presentation skills at them!

Previous leadership experience

• Graduate Student Government – Biology and biotechnology student senator (current)
• Women’s Research and Mentorship Program mentor (2022)
• Smith College Ice Hockey Captain (2015-2017)

Accessibility

Career Development Subcommittee

Communications & Outreach

Community & Membership

Ikele Chinyere Mary-Cynthia, member
Graduate student, Osaka University, Japan
Preferred pronouns: she/her/hers

Edward Pietryk, member
Graduate student, Baylor College of Medicine
Preferred pronouns: he/him/his

Haoran Cai, member
Graduate student, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Mahmoud Izadi, member
Graduate student, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar
Preferred pronouns: he/him/his

Rebecca Arnold, member
Graduate student, Institute of Science and Technology, Austria
Preferred pronouns: she/her/hers

Multimedia

Alex McElwee-Adame, co-chair
Graduate Student, San Diego State University

Debraj Manna, member
Graduate student, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru
Preferred pronouns: he/him/his

Faye Romero, member
Graduate student, University of Rochester
Preferred pronouns: she/her/hers

Jevithen Nehru, member
Graduate student, University of Toronto

Kazeem Alayande, member
Postdoc, North-West University, South Africa
Preferred pronouns: he/him/his

Laetitia Chauve, member
Postdoc, Trinity College Dublin
Preferred pronouns: she/her/hers

Policy & Advocacy

Bahaar Chawla, member
Graduate student, University of Michigan
Preferred pronouns: she/her/hers

Maddelyn Harden, co-chair
Graduate Student, University of Southern California
Preferred pronouns: she/her/hers

Montana Kay Lara, member
Postdoc, University of California, San Diego
Preferred pronouns: she/her/hers

Oluwabukola Mary Farodoye, member
Graduate student, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Rosty Brichko, member
Graduate student, University of California, Irvine

Ujani Hazra, member
Graduate student, Georgia Institute of Technology
Preferred pronouns: she/her/hers

By Melissa Drown

Early career research experiences can be instrumental in leading science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors into scientific careers. Unfortunately, with limited time for mentoring and a high faculty-to-undergraduate student ratio, providing undergraduates with meaningful research experiences can be challenging. Below are some recommendations for providing meaningful undergraduate research experiences (UREs). These recommendations are based on a structured URE implemented in the Marine Genomics Lab at the University of Miami. 

Considerations:

Compensation

Undergraduate students often participate in extracurricular activities, hold jobs, and register for a full course load each semester. This can make participating in a URE difficult, as many are offered as volunteer positions where students are not compensated for their time. To remove barriers to participation, faculty can:

• Provide support for students to apply for institutional undergraduate research grants when available. Examples: University of Miami Small Undergraduate Research Grant Experience (SURGE), University of Minnesota Undergraduate Research Opportunity Project (UROP), 
• Advertise work-study opportunities when possible. Work-study students have their income supplemented by the university making it very cost-effective to hire them.
  Contact your university work study office for details.
• Offer research credit for completed lab work. Students can often earn research credits towards their degree, making it possible for them to reduce their course load while still making progress toward graduation. 

Independent project selection

Working on independent projects allows undergraduate students to develop project ownership and feelings of responsibility for project success. Simply put, students are essential to the project and are not a “pair of hands” doing predetermined work for others. Some suggestions include having undergraduate students doing the following:

• Have students brainstorm project ideas that are within the expertise of your lab
• Have students refine ideas through discussion with graduate students and faculty
• Have them write an abstract and receive feedback from graduate students. 

Expectations and outcomes

At the start of the semester, weekly expectations should be set and discussed with participating undergraduate students. This includes the number of hours students will be in the lab, the progress they will be expected to make by specific dates, and deliverables that will be produced throughout the semester to demonstrate their progress. Examples of deliverables used in the Marine Genomics Lab at the University of Miami are detailed in the table below. Intermediate products are important for maintaining a connection with the students and preventing them from being “left to their own devices” or set to work on a project without accountability, which can lead to failed research experiences. 

Mentoring

It is recommended to have no more than two undergraduate students paired with graduate student mentors. Graduate-undergraduate student pairs can schedule meetings at their chosen frequency (20 minute long weekly meetings work well). In addition, undergraduate students should be encouraged to meet with faculty mentors at least twice during the semester. 

It is important to consider practices for inclusive mentoring by providing a safe environment for all students to learn and work. This can be accomplished, for example, by sharing pronouns at lab meetings, being aware of explicit and implicit barriers to participation (e.g., can all students get to your lab easily, is the training they need to participate in research free and available, are you providing paid and/or for-credit opportunities), and creating a lab “contract” that outlines expectations including a statement on diversity, equity, and inclusion in your lab and at your institution. 

Community

One important outcome of undergraduate research experiences is the potential to increase feelings of inclusion in academia among mentees. Below are a few ways this can be accomplished:

• Involve students in journal clubs, lab meetings, and lab outings 
• Put undergraduate researchers into small groups and have them present chosen papers at journal club
• Use lab time to hear undergraduate research updates
• Help students apply and prepare presentations for campus undergraduate research symposiums or conferences when appropriate 

Professional development

In addition to building research skills, undergraduates benefit from UREs because they get to interact with graduate students and faculty. Additional opportunities for professional development can be readily implemented into a URE by using lab time for intentional non-research activities. Some examples include:

• Converting a resume to a CV
• How to write a cover letter
• Maintaining a good lab notebook
• Using R for data analysis and visualization
• How to use a citation manager
• Effective scientific poster design

These topics can be covered in ~1-hour workshop-style seminars led by graduate students at the lab or departmental level. 

Key takeaways

1. Set expectations early, use intermediate deliverables, and plan your time
2. Teach key skills including lab notebook maintenance, scientific writing, citation management, and presentation skills
3. Integrate undergraduates into the lab group to build community

References and resources

1. Brown, Anne M., Stephanie N. Lewis, and David R. Bevan. “Development of a structured undergraduate research experience: Framework and implications.” Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education 44.5 (2016): 463-474.
2. Keeping a lab Notebook – NIH Office of Intramural Training
3. Mentoring LGBTQ+ Students in STEM
4. Setting Expectations in Writing for New Lab Members
5. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Marine Genomics Laboratory
   1. This includes an example of a written expectations guide for new students and has resources for professional development (e.g., citation managers, writing a good CV, learning coding, general lab techniques)