Chen Zou ’24
Major: Psychology

Research and Internship in the field of Mental Health

Curious how to find research or internship opportunities in the field of mental health? What typical duties will an undergraduate research assistant or intern have? In this presentation, Chen will present her experiences as a summer research assistant for the WISH lab, directed by Dr. Corey Flanders, and share her thoughts about how to find relevant opportunities, as well as what she gets from this experience.

Elizabeth Jackson ’25
Major: Biochemistry

Understanding Graduate Level Research, or Not

This summer I was a research assistant at an immunology and pathobiology lab at Virginia Tech. The Allen lab contains a variety of projects, one of them is an ongoing effort to characterize the lab’s protein of interest, NLRX1, and how it interacts with SARS-CoV-2. This project is an example of how academic research plans adapt to global health crises. My internship provided me with first hand experience of how graduate research plans can change and adapt on a day to day basis over a few months. Sometimes real life outside of the lab gets in the way, sometimes the experiment takes longer than you planned. Either way, I had to learn how to keep adapting and moving forward in my pursuits, whether that includes the immediate experiment or figuring out my larger career plans.

Andreana Hardin ’24
Major: Biological Sciences
Minor: Geology

Development of Non invasive prenatal diagnostic technique for XLHED

Exploring the development of non-invasive prenatal diagnostic techniques for hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasias and other x-linked genetic disorders while abroad.

Chenlu Wang ’25
Major: Computer Science

Tech in Heathcare

During my summer internship, I worked as a software engineering intern in a tech startup where I contributed my frontend development knowledge to enhance their mobile application, Dermize-app. This iOS application is designed to detect and document skin diseases for patients, serving as a crucial tool in streamlining dermatological consultations and management.