Panel Title: Internship Insights: From Education to Clinical Research
Panel Moderator: Mark Shea
Panel Abstract (100-150 words)
Our internships span a range of disciplines, from education to clinical research, and we will focus on the lessons and knowledge that each of our experiences left us with. Deepika taught physics and science classes at a local school, which made her realize that she wanted to pursue an educational career but at the college level instead. Matilde facilitated the student experience by translating documents and handling student information, which strengthened her organization and time-management skills and showed her the behind-the-scenes of academia. Elise taught at School of Rock, Palo Alto, and learned that child independence is a key aspect of the learning curriculum. Lingdang focused on how cells are connected to one another and interact with their surrounding environment to form functional networks with computer-assisted reconstruction algorithms. Overall, our educational and clinical internships presented us with unique opportunities to learn new skills and strengthen existing ones that we will apply to real-world problems.
Speaker 1 Name: Deepika Kumawat
Speaker 1 Title: An Education Placement at an English School
Speaker 1 Abstract: Last semester, I was studying abroad in England. I interned at a local all-boys school with a mixed Sixth form in Bath. I went in every Tuesday for a whole school day, and observed, helped, and taught physics and general science classes. In my Education Placement class, happening every week too, I reflected on my experiences and learned if teaching was the path I wanted to follow after graduation. I realized that I wanted to teach, but at a college level instead, because I missed doing independent research. At LEAP, I will share about this and my amazing experience of exploring education through English schools after studying at an Indian and American institute before!
Speaker 2 Name: Matilde Dal Boni
Speaker 2 Title: Managing student data at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
Speaker 2 Abstract: My internship was at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice during the summer of 2023 in Venice, Italy. During my internship, I worked with the Welcome Unit, which is a department of the university that handles and supports international students coming to the university to study through an exchange program or enroll in a Bachelor, Master, or PhD program. My responsibilities included document translation, maintaining the Welcome Unit’s website, and primarily focused on data entry and management. I collected, organized, and maintained comprehensive databases of international and domestic student information, including demographic information, enrollment data, contact details, and financial and immigration information. Throughout my internship, I encountered the challenge of managing large amounts of student data, which significantly contributed to my understanding of database management systems and attention to detail. In my presentation, I will focus on the importance of data management, drawing insights from my experience at Ca’ Foscari University.
Speaker 3 Name: Elise Schemmel Shapiro
Speaker 3 Title: Teaching at the School of Rock
Speaker 3 Abstract: Over the summer, I was a rock band instructor at School of Rock Palo Alto. I instructed multiple instruments at once in the setting of a rock band. Every day, I would briefly show students their independent parts, and then address the song to the whole group. We discussed song form, chord changes, and more. Figuring out time management was significantly challenging at first because I could not spend too much time on one student and had to ensure that the group knew their parts altogether. Moreover, students only had a week to learn the song, so occasionally more elaborate parts demanded simplification. However, simplifying songs and figuring out allocation of time to each student became more intuitive as time went on. I discovered that these two skills are incredibly important as a music instructor. In my presentation I will discuss approaches to teaching music that emphasize independence and creativity.
Speaker 4 Name: Lingdang Zhang
Speaker 4 Title: Computational Infrastructure Model of the Nervous System
Speaker 4 Abstract: My name is Lingdang Zhang (she/her). I began research at Yale School of Medicine last summer as a computational research assistant to study the intercommunication between sub-organelles when two adjacent cell bodies perform interactions. Through this research, I contributed to the ongoing conversations surrounding the digital reconstructions of brain development, structure, and function with limited time and datasets, and to exploring how computational models can help in deciphering the organizational principles of large-scale brain networks. The main contribution of my study is the successful visualization of sub-organelle structures, which makes it possible to identify different cell types in computer-assisted reconstruction algorithms and suggest a generative model for neuronal alignments. My work focuses in particular on analyzing neural state space alignments from SEM images and massive datasets and developing a computational infrastructure model of the nervous system.
