Eminent Speaker Peter J. Buxtun

“The Tuskegee Syphilis Study”

Meet Undergraduate Researcher Emily Slaby, Chemical Engineering class of 2018!

Title of Research Project: Boosting Immune Cells using Plasma Membrane-inserting Drugs to Combat Cancer

Who is your mentor for your research project? I emailed a few professors in my department about lab positions and I included my enthusiasm about cancer research when one of them connected me to Professor Gregory Szeto, Department of Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Engineering . I contacted Dr. Szeto with my resume and answered a few questions about my interests and goals. The lab had just opened in January 2016, so I helped with the startup and started learning about immunology. My mentor encouraged a few of my lab members to apply for an Undergraduate Research Award (URA) to help us explain our projects and get ready to present at the Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day (URCAD). It really helped me understand the background and explain my project better to lab members who did not do similar work. The URA application was like writing a grant proposal, without preliminary results.

How did you know this was the project you wanted to do? I studied the relationship between stem cells, cancer, and aging during an English research paper my first year of community college. Cancer research interested me because of the complexity of the disease, and this was a wonderful opportunity to build my skills and apply myself. I have learned so much about cancer stages, therapies, and immunology through this project.

Do you get course credit for this work? I currently get course credit as an elective for my chemical engineering bachelor’s degree. A comprehensive report is required to compile results and relate the research back to chemical engineering cores. This helps me apply concepts learned in classes to research applications.

How much time do you put into it? During the semester, I put in about 15-20 hours of lab and outside research time. This time may be spent performing experiments, analyzing results, or making presentations to explain results. During the summer, I have much more time to explore my project and try new things, so I am usually there about 40 hours per week.

What has been the hardest part about your research? The hardest part of the research is troubleshooting after analyzing the results. This is also what makes research fun, interesting, and unexpected. New discoveries can come from unexpected results, so the hardest part is the most interesting. I love the challenge of finding the little things that affect results the most.

What was the most unexpected thing? It is amazing how close you become with lab members and how much input they have when something does not go quite right. We each have different strengths and background to help fill in the gaps, keep each other thinking on our feet, and keep us learning more about our projects each day.

What is your advice to other students about getting involved in research?Think about a few areas of research that interest you, and look on the departments’ websites to find labs that you want to explore. Do not be afraid to go outside your department! You can gain tons of new perspectives with interdisciplinary research. Reach out to the professors about your interests, ideas, and how you think this collaboration would help both of you!

What are your career goals? My main goal is to stay in disease-based research by pursuing a Ph.D. to continue my education and passion for research. I want to combine my chemical engineering background with biomolecular engineering to discover therapies for autoimmune diseases and cancer. During the next year, I want to get more exposure to research labs at graduate schools that align my interests in engineering and immunology to develop broadly applicable platforms as therapies for human diseases. After my Ph.D., I want to go into research and development in industry to continue designing therapies.

Have mentor-led research and want to be featured as a UMBC Researcher of the Week? Email: aprilh@umbc.edu

Mia is using her URA research and creative work to raise awareness about human trafficking!

Mia is a Theatre Design & Production major, Entrepreneurship & Innovation Minor, and a Linehan Artist Scholar, who will graduate in 2019. Her URA research project is entitled, "Visual Storytelling Applied to Human Trafficking Awareness".

Describe your project: With funding from my Undergraduate Research Award (URA), I attended the 2017 Summer Scene Painting session at Cobalt Studios in New York. I am applying the painting skills I built there to both my research in scenic designing the production of Far Away at UMBC in the spring, as well as creating a large-scale mural to visually tell stories of human trafficking.

Who is your mentor(s) for your project? How did you find your mentor? Why did you choose them?

Professor Sinnott is my advisor and mentor in the UMBC Theatre Department who I work with frequently, in both design and painting for productions. Professor Sinnott has been my mentor from the beginning of this research, and is mentoring my theatrical research and production for Far Away in the spring.

I am currently taking Social Entrepreneurship in Place with Professor Bradley and, through that class, collaborating with him on arts-based community engagement projects in Curtis Bay. Professor Bradley is mentoring me in community-based research and artistic responses and solutions to social issues.

How did you become interested in this project? How has it evolved?

My mentor, Professor Nate Sinnott, first recommended I attend a session at Cobalt Studios; in addition, throughout the summer, I was reading the UMBC first-year experience book, Half the Sky, which was propelling my existing investment in the fight against human trafficking into greater action. As I began to take Social Entrepreneurship in Place in the fall with Professor Stephen Bradley, I realized that I wanted my research for the Undergraduate Research Award to evolve into a parallel project of creating a mural for URCAD. Now, I am exploring parallel themes of dehumanization in both Far Away by Caryl Churchill, and in our world today through human trafficking. In addition, I am partnering with nonprofit organizations in the Baltimore area whose missions are to end domestic child sex trafficking, provide care for survivors of women’s domestic sex trafficking, and empowerment of women.

What has been the hardest part about your research?

In dealing with heavy themes, it can be difficult to continue to stay engaged with the material. I have found it most difficult to stay continually engaged with the realities of human trafficking: to keep learning.

What has been the most rewarding part?

I have been astonished at how well my research is connecting. Once I allowed my ideas to change, and let my research become flexible, I was worried that my original studies through theatre might feel irrelevant, or even distracting, from this other goal. This has not been the case. In fact, I have felt a greater motivation through my theatrical research, as I am exploring themes in both a practical production and an artistic response to a social issue.

I will be presenting at URCAD on April 25th, and the spring production of Caryl Churchill's Far Away will be staged from March 9th through March 11th.

What is your advice to other students about getting involved in research? 

I would like to say this a little bit poetically:

jump in

dive in

be unafraid of change

and see where it carries you

be ready for hard work

be ready for not-enough-time

get creative

be thrifty

be ready for excitement

be ready for some let-downs

but jump in

What are your career goals?

My career goals are:

To always give my utmost effort to any work I am doing.

To be a creative and innovative force.

To collaborate, communicate and engage with community.

My highest hopes are to continue using art as a tool for raising awareness about human trafficking; whether that be through theatre, visual art, socialpreneurship or nonprofit intrepreneurship. Ultimately, though, I care most that I am achieving these three goals, regardless of the work I am able to do.

Want to be featured as a Researcher of the Week? Email: aprilh@umbc.edu 

Undergraduate Research Awards provide up to $1,500 to undergraduate students to support their research or creative work with a UMBC faculty mentor on an original project. UMBC students of all years and disciplines are invited to apply, as long as they will remain enrolled at UMBC long enough to complete the proposed work.

**New! Entrepreneurship URAs provide up to $1,500 to undergraduate researchers to support the development of a solution to either a technical or social problem in collaboration with a UMBC faculty mentor. These solutions can be products or services, address a social or “green” concern, or promote ideas that generate artistic value. To be eligible for an Entrepreneurship URA, you must be enrolled as a UMBC student for the duration of the work proposed. For more information, contact Vivian Armor, Director, Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship 410-455-5740, or email armor@umbc.edu.

Reserve your seat here: 

https://my.umbc.edu/groups/undergradresearch/events/53834

Undergraduate Research Awards provide up to $1,500 to undergraduate students to support their research or creative work with a UMBC faculty mentor on an original project. UMBC students of all years and disciplines are invited to apply, as long as they will remain enrolled at UMBC long enough to complete the proposed work.

**New! Entrepreneurship URAs provide up to $1,500 to undergraduate researchers to support the development of a solution to either a technical or social problem in collaboration with a UMBC faculty mentor. These solutions can be products or services, address a social or “green” concern, or promote ideas that generate artistic value. To be eligible for an Entrepreneurship URA, you must be enrolled as a UMBC student for the duration of the work proposed. For more information, contact Vivian Armor, Director, Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship 410-455-5740, or email armor@umbc.edu.

Reserve your seat here: 

https://my.umbc.edu/groups/undergradresearch/events/53834

Have you completed research that you want to refine and publish?

Would you like to be able to put “published author” on your resume?

Would you like professional criticism on your writing from a peer and faculty reviewers?

Submit your paper to the 2018 UMBC Reviewfor consideration. Direct all questions to our editors at umbcreview@umbc.edu.

The Deadline has been extended: September 27, 2017

Note: You can submit even after you graduate, as long as the research was done while you were an undergraduate at UMBC.