Augusta University recently highlighted its commitment to research and education through the Student Training And Research (STAR) Program poster session, organized by The Graduate School. The STAR Program aims to offer hands-on research experiences for undergraduates interested in pursuing PhD degrees in biomedical sciences, nursing, or biostatistics at Augusta University.
Students participate in a nine-week summer program, working closely with faculty mentors and their research teams. According to Elena Dent, PhD, director of the STAR Program, this initiative has provided mentored undergraduate research opportunities for more than thirty years.
“We are very fortunate to have graduate faculty who are not only experts in their respective fields but are also committed to mentoring the next generation of biomedical researchers. Their strong track records of trainee success reflect that dedication,” said Dent.
This year’s program featured seven PhD mentors: Eric Vitriol, Qin Wang, Wendy Bollag, Meghan McGee-Lawrence, Yutao Liu, Eric Belin de Chantemèle, and Daria Ilatovskaya. Seven undergraduate students from various institutions participated in weekly workshops and seminars as part of their professional development.
“While many of our applicants are interested in medical school, which is needed to address the shortage of health care providers in Georgia, we are also working to build a strong research pipeline at AU,” Dent said. “Our goal is to attract students who are passionate about advancing health care through discovery and innovation. We are very fortunate to have graduate faculty who are not only experts in their respective fields but are also committed to mentoring the next generation of biomedical researchers. Their strong track records of trainee success reflect that dedication.”
Eric Vitriol emphasized the value of near-peer mentoring by pairing undergraduates with graduate students or faculty members for direct guidance on laboratory techniques. He worked with Shelby Lewis from Mercer University during this year’s program.
“When she joined the lab, Shelby was really interested in working with human neurons that we derive from stem cells. I paired her with a great mentor in Bruno Cisterna, PhD, and with almost no kind of lab research experience, was able to jump in and quickly learn that experimental model system,” Vitriol said.
Vitriol noted Lewis’s initiative and enthusiasm throughout her time in the lab.
“She had a lot of initiative and enthusiasm that I would consider exceptional,” Vitriol said. “Going from not knowing how to do sterile mammalian tissue culture to doing sophisticated tissue culture techniques and actually turning cells into other types of cells – that would be hard for a grad student or a postdoc, and she learned it almost immediately. Her growth was phenomenal over the course of the STAR Program.”
Lewis explained her motivation for joining the program stemmed from an interest in neurodegenerative diseases affecting millions worldwide.
“I’ve taken a variety of science courses at school, and I knew I wanted to work on something that is actively affecting communities worldwide,” Lewis said. “Neurodegenerative diseases affect millions of people every year, especially in the United States and in my own family. I think working with cell culture and neurodegenerative diseases was a perfect fit for everything that I’ve learned and everything that I want to learn.”
She credited her mentors for fostering optimism during her research experience.
“They gave me a level of optimism that I didn’t have before. They told me not to dwell on your mistakes but to move on and see how you can do better. Dr. Vitriol told me on the first day, ‘If you work hard and put time and effort into your experiments, it’ll work out. Even if it’s not what you expected to happen, you can get back up and try again,’” Lewis said. “Those are things that I’ll take, not just in science, but in life because things aren’t always going to go how we expect.”
At the closing luncheon for this year’s program session, several awards were announced: Charlee Hutt received The Eldridge Award for research accomplishments; Elena Vega received The Ebad Hasan Memorial Award for outstanding character; Nidhi Shenoy received The Patricia L. Cameron Award for overall performance; while Eric Belin de Chantemèle and Adam Salon were recognized as outstanding mentors.
Applications for next summer’s STAR Program open September 1st with a deadline set for February 6th.
