Discovering the World Underneath a Microscope

Coming around towards the end of my summer fellowship experience, a lot of new challenges are beginning to present themselves. At the beginning, every moment of free time is occupied with the collection of data for your project, lab maintenance, and trying to interpret results as you're collecting them. Towards the end, you start to sift through, organize, and analyze every detail of the project that is supposed to go onto your poster in order to present your findings. This part can take a lot of time, or even all of it. When sitting down at the computer to transform an extensive list of data points and numbers into usable graphs and figures can make up a large chunk of your day. Switching from the collection of data to its presentation is not quite as exciting, but definitely more important.

It has been a challenge to create meaningful charts that express what I've learned over the course of 10 weeks. Making graphs that show the different parameters of my work, in a comprehensible and engaging manner, has become the primary focus as the conference in which I get to display that work draws nearer. Since the work we perform is so niche, clarity and conciseness is of the utmost importance. And while this new challenge has been a time-consuming venture, the hours in front of the computer screen have given me a lot of time to reflect on what an incredible adventure this summer has been.

Starting out, I had no idea that I would grow to love everything about my research experience. I have learned so many things that will help me as I strive to further my academic career. I have learned so much more than the scope that my research covers, and I know that going forward, I will continue to discover great and amazing things about my field. Going into the Fall, I am excited to continue my work in the lab with Dr. Groome, and the other incredible people whom I work with every day. INBRE has given me the opportunity to see things from a much more global perspective, even though we've been studying the world underneath a microscope. I'm grateful to have had this opportunity, and I'm thankful to have had such incredible peers and mentors.

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