lens
Research Exposure
Summer program gave students from underrepresented backgrounds experience in scientific labs
Photo: Matt Shiffler
Justin Creary arrived at a campus lab last summer, excited for the medical research experience. But the Case Western Reserve undergraduate also felt a bit intimidated: What if the lab team combating antibiotic resistance expected him to know more chemistry or biology?
“It was the opposite,” said Creary, now a sophomore. “They walked me through steps so I could do things on my own in the future.”
Creary emerged with more knowledge—and a new mindset. “I learned to embrace being uncomfortable,” he said, “knowing I will get comfortable as I have time to learn.”
His experience came in a pilot summer program that exposed undergraduates from diverse or historically underrepresented backgrounds to campus research that tackles problems at the intersection of human health and the environment.
“We wanted to build something overarching, interdisciplinary, bigger than our own labs and departments out of the exciting research we saw around us,” said Karen Abbott, PhD, a biology professor who developed the initial concept with Blanton Tolbert, PhD, the Rudolph and Susan Rense Professor in chemistry and vice dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusive Excellence at the university’s School of Medicine.
What they and two other faculty members—Vivien Yee, PhD, from the medical school, and Bill Yu, PhD, from Case School of Engineering—built and directed is Interdisciplinary Research at the Interface of Health Science and the Environment, or IRIHSE.
They aim to expand the initiative to include more students in the summer program and additional interdisciplinary faculty collaborations.
The first group of students—eight from CWRU and two from universities outside the region—were nearly all rising sophomores. Most had two experiences, one focused on the environment and the other on health sciences.
The program provided a stipend and campus housing.
Tolbert said he co-launched IRIHSE because of the “major gaps” in racial representation and diversity he’s seen throughout his career in the fields of STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics].
He wants more students exposed to cutting-edge research and to see the rewards of a career as a basic scientist. “Sometimes you don’t know what you like until you try it,” he said.
Program Directors
Funding a Summer Experience
Several university programs or offices funded the 2021 undergraduate research program. They include: the Expanding Horizons Initiative at the College of Arts and Sciences; the Support of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE) office; the Student Success office; and the Office of the Provost. The National Institutes of Health provided supplemental funding.