Week One:

My community engagement project is a summer program offered by The Science Squad, an NGO founded in 2016 by a Laidlaw alum! My project is centered around engaging high schoolers in carrying out a research project of their own while also conducting a Science Education Outreach Project (SEOP) that allows them to be part of a grassroots movement in increasing scientific discourse in their local communities—the high schoolers part of this program come from schools and communities without robust science research programs or course offerings and therefore want to be part of a change in their community for increasing scientific literacy. Although this topic is widely discussed in science education, it seems that there hasn’t been one concrete solution, at least one that addresses the needs of students in urban and suburban educational environments. I feel that, since we all have a shared mission in increasing the reach of robust science education, it should empower us and not make us insecure that other people are considering solutions for the same dilemma. 

My project last summer was a science research project (investigating the structural biology of proteins involved in Wnt signaling). I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to carry out a project like this due to my privilege of having a well-rounded scientific education both in high school and college. A recognition of that privilege drove me to understand how I can best attempt a solution for engaging high schoolers without these resources in scientific research and pedagogy.

Week 1

If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer’s project influenced your project this year, and if so how?  If your project is different, what tools have you developed to help you work on this project?

Last summer, I spent the majority of my time in the lab, studying the efficacy of specific therapeutics on cancers that employ the alternative lengthening of telomeres method. While this experience gave me an appreciation of the wet lab aspect of medical research, I wanted to improve my understanding of medical research as a translational process. After all, developing pharmaceuticals to treat chronic conditions is only one part of the puzzle - funding, supply, and distribution also play a major role in ensuring the sustainable management of chronic conditions. This summer, I am thus in Uganda interning at a hypertension clinic run in association with the MUST-UNC-PHEALED Collaboration. In practice, this looks like taking part in the clinic once a week, updating the patient database, and securing medication supplies. In addition, I am also cataloging the specific long-term challenges the clinic faces and using a combination of interviews and preexisting literature to identify potential solutions. A significant portion of my project still involves the data collection and organization skills I used in the lab. However, in comparison to last summer, my project involves a more significant level of collaboration with various teams, including the clinic, nonprofit, and research staff. As I don’t speak the local Lhukonzo language, this has been a bit of an exciting challenge. That being said, I am very much looking forward to seeing where my project takes me!

Week Five:
What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

On the practical side, I have learned to work with a lot of different programs in new ways (including but not limited to Polaris, a library site; Raiser's Edge, a finance site; Adobe InDesign; YouTube; Instagram; and Blackbaud, a general organization site). I have also learned a lot about how a real nonprofit functions - it requires a lot of intercommunication to make sure things don't get done twice or not done at all. I have been working a lot with the head of Events, who is not technically my boss but who has been offering me a lot of advice on getting work done (do it early in case you make mistakes and have to go back!), on working in a library (the patrons come first, as do the donors) and on life in Paris in general (don't take the train after 11pm because they don't come as frequently).  I think that her advice has taught me that leadership is very site-specific, and it can't really be taught; you just have to absorb knowledge from others and be willing to pass it on. There is no such thing as "general leadership skills" except being polite, patient, and a clear speaker.

Week 1: As you set out on your research or community engagement project, do you find yourself experiencing any worries or insecurities about saying something that’s already been said? How do we as researchers and/or volunteers learn to address or set aside those insecurities or, better yet, to use them to our advantage?

Hi! This summer, I am working with FEDETUR, the Federation of Tourism Enterprises in Chile on understanding the current state of carbon counting and emissions reduction in Chilean tourism. I have some worries about explaining certain aspects of sustainable tourism to Chilean contacts if they already know them. This week, I am getting a better sense of the carbon counting and emissions reduction / environmental impact work done within Chilean tourism enterprises already. I also realize the reemphasis on these themes could help further grow sustainable choices in Chile, so repeating a very valid issue should perhaps not be of large concern given the scope of the project.
From a more obvious perspective, I have some insecurities about the language barrier between myself and those I will work with, as I am working fully in Spanish. While I feel fluent, Spanish is not my native language, and Chilean Spanish is especially known for being quite distinctive and hard to understand for native Spanish speakers, so I do not catch 100% of what is said. I’m filling the gaps quite quickly. This barrier has also made me think about how to use my perspective especially within Chile.
Chilean universities require students to pursue internships during their college years, so doing what I’m doing is quite common in my organization. However, they have never had a foreign intern, so I am thinking about the ways I might best serve them through my perspective. This might be helping with English communications and research or providing a US perspective on the tourism sphere. I look forward to learning more.