Progress 03/01/23 to 02/29/24
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience consists of: 1) undergraduate students who want to receive training in plant sciences and research on innovative agricultural technologies, 2) graduate degree programs that are recruiting students with such skills, and 3) companies that want to hire experienced plant researchers. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As described in the previous section, the project provided research training to ten undergraduate students. Former student participants will be tracked to determine whether they continue in plant research, go to graduate school, and pursue plant-related careers. Postdoctoral fellows and graduate students who supervised the research of REEU program participants gained valuable experience in research mentoring, which will help to prepare them for future careers as research leaders. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Students presented their results in the form of a talk or poster at a public research symposium on August 10, 2021. Information about 2023 summer interns and their research is posted on the Boyce Thompson Institute website, https://btiscience.org/education-outreach/internships/. The student talks in our annual symposium were live-streamed for audience members who were not able to attend in person. Students were interviewed in front of their posters and these presentations were both live-streamed and recorded. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We are currently accepting applications for our 2024 REEU summer program and will select the most qualified applicants in mid-February 2024. Students will arrive on the Cornell University campus on June 2, 2024. Based on their research interests, they will be assigned to plant research labs at the Boyce Thompson Institute, Cornell University, and the USDA Plant Soil and Nutrition Lab. The actual student research projects have not yet been determined, but the overall 2024 summer program will be organized in a manner very similar to that which is described above for 2023. Students will present their results in a symposium on August 9, 2024.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. Identify and recruit students from groups that are underrepresented in science Students were informed about our REEU program through several sources: Project website describing our overall summer program, https://btiscience.org/education-outreach/bti-internships/ Utilized the SACNAS, ASPB, Pathway to Science, Google Jobs, and free college internship job boards Through Handshake, we connected with over 90 universities to post the internship opportunity directly to students Plantae.org/internships - focused on plant specific research experience programs SACNAS 2023- Internship information was provided by Cornell representatives ABRCMs 2023- Internship information was provided by the REEU program coordinator Paid Facebook and LinkedIn advertising Contacted more than 50 department heads at universities with a plant science focus Relationships formed with Howard University to recruit students directly Email messages to former REEU interns and writers of recommendation letters Direct mailings of program posters to ~100 colleges, with an emphasis on those that server underrepresented minority students (PUI, HBCU, tribal schools, and Puerto Rico) In 2023, this advertising approach resulted in a diverse pool of 334 applicants. Ten of these students were accepted into the 2023 summer program and were asked to list their top choices of labs in which they would like to work. Faculty members and mentors also listed their top choices of potential summer interns. These data were combined to assign students to particular labs, giving priority to the interests of the individual students. 2. Implement a summer internship program focused on Innovative Agricultural Technologies The ten student participants worked summer research projects in labs at the Boyce Thompson Institute, the USDA-ARS, and Cornell University. At the beginning of the 2023 summer program, each student worked together with his or her mentor to write a short proposal about the planned research. Each student also critiqued the proposal of at least one fellow student. Individual student research projects varied according to the lab in which the students were working. However, the emphasis was always hands-on laboratory research, learning new techniques, and conducting research on a project that could come to a meaningful conclusion in ten weeks. Summaries of each student's research project can be viewed on the BTI education and outreach website, https://btiscience.org/education-outreach/internships/. Other activities organized for the summer interns included a bioinformatics course, tours for Cornell facilities, and weekly faculty lectures. Faculty who presented as part of the weekly research talks are: June 7 - Adrienne Roeder, "How plant leaves and sepals get their shape" June 14 - Olena Vatamaniuk, "Trace metals homeostasis, its regulation, sensing and utilization processes in plants" June 21 - Magda Julkowska, "Understanding components of environmental resilience through forward genetics and high throughput phenotyping" June 28 - Margaret Frank, "Breaking and building bridges: Discovering the biology underlying graft compatibility" July 19 - April Gu, "Towards Water and Phosphorus Sustainability and Circular Economy at the Water-Food-Energy-Carbon Nexus" July 26 - Chris Alabi, "Embracing Mentorship: A Voyage into the Delivery of Biologics" August 2 - Miguel Pineros, ""Understanding How Membrane Transport Proteins Underlie Key Agronomic Traits" Bioinformatics workshop: A series of five two-hour bioinformatics workshops, organized by Adrian Powell and Jing Zhang, provided students an introduction to handling large data sets, primarily those from DNA sequencing and gene expression profiling projects. Ethics training: As part of the orientation at the beginning of the program, Georg Jander provided a presentation about ethical issues that arise from lab notebooks and other record keeping. Students also completed a Responsible Conduct of Research training course through the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative. 3. Provide necessary training for students applying to scientific graduate programs Students participated in two graduate school information sessions. One provided general information about graduate school. On July 12, 2023, we organized a graduate school information session during which faculty representatives of nine Cornell University PhD programs: Microbiology - Tobias Doerr Plant Biology - Adrienne Roeder Plant Pathology - Melanie Filiatrault Plant Breeding - Jean-Luc Jannink Crop and Soil Science - Matt Ryan Horticulture - Taryn Bauerle Entomology - Jennifer Thaler Ecology - Anurag Agrawal Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering - Abe Stroock Each faculty member gave a five-minute introduction about his or her PhD program. After this introduction, students had the opportunity to meet as groups for half an hour each with three of the faculty members to get more detailed information about the admission requirements and activities of the respective programs. Additionally, students participated in an NSF-sponsored Graduate Research Fellowship webinar and a related panel discussion. On August 10, 2023, all students presented their results in an annual summer student symposium at the Boyce Thompson Institute, in the form of either 15-minute talks or posters. 4. Promote interactions among researchers studying Innovative Agricultural Technologies Scientific interactions were promoted by housing students together, having them read and critique their research proposals, attendance at weekly lunches, presentations of research talks, and attendance at a poster session at the end of the summer. Social mentor program: While each undergraduate student has a research lab mentor, our program encourages participants to begin to think about building their mentoring network even before graduate school. Over the past three years, we have organized an optional program to match undergraduates with "social mentors" on campus. We carefully match students with volunteer mentors from across Cornell's Graduate Schools who also identify as under-represented in their STEM field. 5. Track the educational and professional achievements of former participants in this undergraduate training program We have organized a plant-focused summer internship program since 2005 and have had REEU funding for our program since 2017. We continue to track the activities of all undergraduates who have participated in our internship program. Some noteworthy observations from our overall student tracking are: (i) many students work as lab technicians after graduating from college and prior to going to graduate school, (ii) more than 70% attend graduate school in STEM field at some point, with simultaneous attendance peaking 5 to 7 years after attending the internship program, (iii) participation in STEM careers increases as students complete graduate school, and (iv) 10 years after the completion of each instance of our summer internship program more than 70% of former undergraduate participants are in STEM careers. Many former summer interns are active in academic, industry, or government research.
Publications
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Progress 03/01/22 to 02/28/23
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience consists of: 1) undergraduate students who want to receive training in plant sciences and research on innovative agricultural technologies, 2) graduate degree programs that are recruiting students with such skills, and 3) companies that want to hire experienced researchers. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As described in more detail in the previous section, the project provided research training to twelve undergraduate students. Former student participants will be tracked to determine whether they continue in plant research, go to graduate school, and pursue plant-related careers. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Students presented their results in the form of a talk or poster at a public research symposium on August 4, 2022. Information about 2022 summer interns and their research is posted on the Boyce Thompson Institute website, https://btiscience.org/education-outreach/internships/. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Twelve summer interns for 2023 have been recruited and assigned to research labs at the Boyce Thompson Institute, Cornell University, and the USDA Plant Soil and Nutrition lab. Students will arrive on June 5, 2023. The actual student research projects have not yet been determined, but the overall 2023 summer program will be organized in a manner very similar to that which is described above for 2022.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. Identify and recruit students from groups that are underrepresented in science Students were informed about our REEU program through several sources: NSF website describing our overall summer program Utilized the SACNAS, ASPB, Pathway to Science, Google Jobs, and various free college internship job boards Through Handshake, we connected with over 90 universities to post the internship opportunity directly to students Plantae.org/internships - focused on plant specific research experience programs SACNAS 2022- Internship information was provided by Cornell representatives ABRCMs 2022- Internship information was provided by Cornell representatives Paid Facebook and LinkedIn advertising Contacted more than 50 department heads at universities with a plant science focus Relationships formed with Howard University to recruit students directly Email messages to former REU interns and writers of recommendation letters Direct mailings of program posters to ~100 colleges, with an emphasis on those that server underrepresented minority students (PUI, HBCU, tribal schools, and Puerto Rico) This advertising resulted in a diverse pool of 310 applicants. Of these, 65 were first-generation college students (21%), 9 were American Indian or Alaska Native or Native American or First Nation (3%), 21 were Black of African American (7%), 52 were Hispanic or Latino (17%). The twelve students that were accepted into the 2022 summer program were asked to list their top choices of labs in which they would like to work. Faculty members and mentors also listed their top choices of potential summer interns. These data were combined to assign students to particular labs, giving priority to the interests of the individual students. 2. Implement a summer internship program focused on crop plant biotic interactions The twelve student participants worked summer research projects in labs at the Boyce Thompson Institute, the USDA-ARS, and Cornell University. At the beginning of the 2022 summer program, each student worked together with his or her mentor to write a short proposal about the planned research. Each student also critiqued the proposal of at least one fellow student. Individual student research projects varied according to the lab in which the students were working. However, the emphasis was always hands-on laboratory research, learning new techniques, and conducting research on a project that could come to a meaningful conclusion in ten weeks. Summaries of each student's research project can be viewed on the BTI education and outreach website, https://btiscience.org/education-outreach/internships/. Other activities organized for the summer interns included a bioinformatics course, graduate school information sessions, tours for Cornell facilities, and weekly faculty lectures. Faculty who presented research talks are: June 1, Georg Jander, Boyce Thompson Institute June 8, Katja Poveda, Entomology Department June 15, Sijin Li, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering June 22, Abe Stroock, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering June 29, Joyce Van Eck, Boyce Thompson Institute July 6, Margaret Frank, School of Integrative Plant Sciences July 20, Zhangjun Fei, Boyce Thompson Institute July 27, Wojtek Pawlowski, School of Integrative Plant Sciences Bioinformatics workshop: A series of five two-hour bioinformatics workshops, organized by Suzy Strickler, Adrian Powell, and Jing Zhang, provided students an introduction to handling large data sets, primarily those from DNA sequencing and gene expression profiling projects. Ethics training: As part of the orientation at the beginning of the program, Georg Jander provided a presentation about ethical issues that arise from lab notebooks and other record keeping. Students also completed a Responsible Conduct of Research training course through the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative. 3. Provide necessary training for students applying to scientific graduate programs Students participated in two graduate school information sessions. One provided general information about graduate school. On July 7th we organized a graduate school information session during which faculty representatives of ten Cornell University PhD programs: Microbiology - Tobias Doerr Plant Biology - Mike Scanlon Plant Pathology - Adam Bogdanove Plant Breeding - Jean-Luc Jannink Crop and Soil Science - Olena Vatamaniuk Horticulture - Thomas Björkman Entomology - Jennifer Thaler Ecology - Anurag Agrawal Computational Biology - Andy Clark Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering - Abe Stroock Each faculty member gave a five-minute introduction about his or her PhD program. After this introduction, students had the opportunity to meet as groups for half an hour each with three of the faculty members to get more detailed information about the admission requirements and activities of the respective programs. Additionally, students participated in an NSF-sponsored Graduate Research Fellowship webinar and a related panel discussion. On August 4, 2022, all students presented their results in an annual summer student symposium at the Boyce Thompson Institute. The 14 NSF-funded students presented talks in the symposium and the others presented posters. 4. Promote scientific interactions among researchers studying innovative agricultural technologies Scientific interactions were promoted by housing students together, having them read and critique their research proposals, attendance at weekly lunches, presentations of research talks, and attendance at a poster session at the end of the summer. Social mentor program: While each undergraduate student has a research lab mentor, our program encourages participants to begin to think about building their mentoring network even before graduate school. Studies suggest students from under-represented backgrounds in STEM benefit from mentors with shared experiences around identity, race, gender and ethnicity who are outside their lab. They also benefit from building a network of support early on in their career pathway. This summer we piloted an optional program to match undergraduates with "social mentors" on campus with Adriana Hernandez, an NSF Graduate Research Fellow in Chelsea Specht's lab. We carefully match students with volunteer mentors from across Cornell's Graduate Schools who also identify as under-represented in their STEM field. They were also given a $30 College Town Bagel Gift Card and Free Ice Cream cards to facilitate their meetings. The results of our survey at the end of the overall summer program, in combination with anecdotal feedback, has allowed us to infer that the social mentor component exceeded our expectations. All surveyed undergraduate students appreciated the opportunity to be paired with a graduate student outside their lab and found the program beneficial. Many students felt that the casual, unstructured nature of the program made them feel comfortable asking questions they don't typically ask research mentors. Since the focus of the program provided time for career discussions and understanding barriers in graduate school, many mentees commented on their appreciation for getting an opportunity to hear more about their social mentor's story and pathway. We will continue this programing in 2023, based on the overwhelmingly positive feedback shared by both mentees and mentors in 2021 and 2022. 5. Track the educational and professional achievements of former participants in this undergraduate training program We keep in touch with former interns who participated in this program. Faculty write recommendation letters, as needed. Most interns from the previous two years of this project are still undergraduates at their home institutions.
Publications
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