What we're up to...

Lots of new things going on in the lab. Here’s what we’re up to!

  • Jen just posted her paper as a preprint here. We also submitted this paper, fingers crossed!

  • Tulip is writing her manuscript and finishing up experiments. Stay tuned soon to hear more about her work on planarian glia!

  • Kendall and Taylor have some exciting hits from their screen of neural regeneration regulators. They are also preparing for their qualifying exams.

  • We are working on a collaborative review on planarian behavior. Stay tuned for that, soon, too!

  • Graduate students completed their Individual Development Plans and thought a lot about what they want to accomplish this year.

  • Our undergraduate students are doing really well. Andres has applied for some summer research programs and will head to MIT this summer. Alejandra is preparing for the MCAT. Both are making progress on their projects, troubleshooting (sometimes!), and learning lots.

  • Rachel Grimes is finishing up a screen and is making a decision on which Medical School to attend soon.

  • We are hosting a high school student for the first time! Ariel Robinson is a senior at Clarke Central High School.

  • We had our first ever “Merge Meetings” - join lab meetings with Dr. Mansi Srivastava and a few of her trainees. We also tried out a lab meeting dedicated to learning to be better writers. Great job, team!

  • We are looking forward to a new season of Flatworm Fridays seminars.

  • Rachel (R-G) sat on an NIH study section, which was a great learning experience. She is also co-teaching Advanced Developmental Biology (CBIO8300) this Spring! RRG is also trying to get some experiments done this Spring and is looking forward to a summer research trip to University of Kentucky to visit Dr. Beth Duncan as part of the SEC Travel program.

Summer successes

We have been hard at work on several projects this summer. Some highlights:

  • James Gaither (pictured below at mid-left) spent the summer in the lab as part of the STEP-UP (NIDDK) program. He presented his work at their symposium this week and did a fantastic job. Taylor and Kendall mentored James and also did a wonderful job.

  • We had additional meetings of the Flatworm Friday symposium, which were very fun for all.

  • Rachel presented at the virtual SDB meeting in July.

  • Rachel submitted an R01 in June.

  • Both Taylor and Kendall has their first committee meetings.

  • Kendall was awarded an ARCS scholarship.

  • Jennifer was accepted into the Frontiers in Stem Cells and Regeneration course at MBL, which will take place this fall.

  • We tried a “Diversity in STEM” lab meeting discussion and many of us committed to new DEIJ plans or activities for 2021-2022.

  • Rachel applied for an SEC travel grant and was awarded funding to work with Dr. Beth Duncan (University of Kentucky) for a couple of weeks in 2022.

  • Former undergrad Rachel Grimes returned to the lab as a part-time technician. She is applying to medical school now. We’re lucky to have her back!

  • Lots of lab members got new and exciting data to move their projects forward. We are working on 4 manuscripts currently and hope to submit several this fall and in early 2022. Full steam ahead!

Celebrating our STEP-UP program (NIDDK) student, James Gaither. He was mentored by Kendall Clay and Taylor Medlock.

Celebrating our STEP-UP program (NIDDK) student, James Gaither. He was mentored by Kendall Clay and Taylor Medlock.

Career Development Week 2021

We completed our annual lab Career Development Week (CDW) between June 21-25. This was the 2nd annual CDW and we added some new elements to the plan to keep improving this intensive career development and planning event for our group.

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The main focus in Career Development Week is each student completing career development/exploration tasks from a long list of available activities (can be accessed here). Our week and list were based on an activity originally designed by Dr. Prachee Avasthi (her website is here, one of her previous lists is here, and a writeup about her approach to this activity can be found here). In our adaptation in its 2nd year, our 4 PhD students completed 74 (!!) career development activities! Our summer student, James, also tried out something new. Although I always like to point out that all students who participate “win” by working their plans, we do make this event a little more silly and competitive by assigning and tabulating point values. The point total winner this year was Kendall Clay, with 27 activities (and also the most “points”). She received the traveling Cardev Cup trophy and some treats inside (see below). I’m so proud of all the hard work everyone put into this week of activities!

This year, we also added a guest speaker component to our event, inviting four speakers to talk about their career paths. Dr. Tony Chen (Editor, Wiley) zoomed with the group to talk about his career in science publishing. Dr. Chen emphasized the transferable skill of problem solving that he regularly employs in his publishing job. Dr. Lauren Cote (Stanford U) spoke about her experiences as a postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Cote helped our group understand differences in postdoctoral and doctoral research and emphasized the importance of finding an environment and postdoc mentor that will allow you to thrive. Dr. Stephanie Conant (University of Detroit Mercy) talked about her teaching-focused faculty position. Dr. Conant shared her joy of teaching student scholars and helped students understand different types of faculty positions in academia. And Dr. Kellie Kravarik (Pfizer) talked with our group about her job as a scientist in industry. Dr. Kravarik emphasized the joyful teamwork that she experiences in her position and helped students identify steps they should take to find and apply for jobs in industry. We were grateful to have two former planarian-ologists with us, as students had read their papers and appreciated hearing from someone who had walked a somewhat similar Ph.D. path. All four guest speakers were truly phenomenal, answering questions, and generously sharing their wisdom and experience in their current job and career path. All guests shared their jobs so wonderfully that I think our students could envision themselves in many different careers (a good thing!).

It was interesting to complete Career Development Week with more experienced students and after a year+ of working and mentoring in a pandemic. On top of all the other challenges of research during a pandemic, students missed career development and networking opportunities. Further, our focuses on health/wellbeing and salvaging some research progress in the past year had put career planning on the back burner for many of us. I’m hopeful that an intensive focus on career development for a week was a useful jumpstart that we all need to create opportunities and plans in the coming year that will enrich students’ experiences and prepare them for their exciting next steps!