Madison Lisenko's ePortfolio

Learning and Skills

This internship site will allow me to build on the skills I am already strong in such as time management and organization but also allow for me to build on some of my weaker ones like confidence.

I think over my entire time at this internship I've been able to see myself grow professionally and get a larger sense of what my future could look like in this career. As I continue I want to prepare myself for presenting my work and express my passion to a larger community. I want to show people why what we are doing important and be able to give them something to think about as we progress in science. I already have plans for the summer to continue with diabetes research at the Mayo Clinic which will be a great opportunity for me to branch out and explore what else it out there.

I was able to learn a few different skills on a technical level with procedural things while also strengthening my time management as I was help accountable for a lot of our analysis in order to get the final project done. I also learned how to be more flexible when things don't happen exactly as planned which is crucial when entering a field that's loaded with failures. I believe this experience taught me more about myself and what a research environment can look like with a biomedical focus.

The Workplace

Over the course of this academic year, I realized the environment that you're in makes a huge difference in enjoying the work you're doing. Having people around you who are supportive and want you to learn is essential to brining up the new scientists. I expected more out of this experience, honestly and it's easy to have a subpar experience and believe there's nothing good and it was a waste, but I believe there's always some sort of lesson that can come out of these. I found things I really enjoyed, and I learned things to look out for in the future all while gaining insight into a topic I would've likely never thought of otherwise.

During this final stretch, I've learned a lot of the things I would change about how I approach science in the future. This experience has taught me how to excel and stay focused on my goals even if the things around me aren't lining up directly.

Successes and Challenges

Awhile ago, I felt very unsure about all the things I was doing. I think that at this point I've become a lot more comfortable with the topics my lab focuses on as well as the procedural fundamentals here. Currently, I think my challenge is feeling engaged in the work I'm doing. I think that a lot of the work now is analyzing and that's of course not as interesting as wet lab work, I just am trying to keep focus on what I'm doing an remember the significance of validating the work rather than just doing a bunch of hands-on things. The internship has shown me how to take a challenge and persist through it because there's a reason to the work being put into these tedious tasks. I think this is a skill I will take with me and apply to my own research one day.

My biggest success in this lab was probably learning a new topic and understanding the science behind it. I of course learned a few technical skills that might be helpful in the future but I found ways to talk about the science and express it in terms that are accessible to anyone. This was one of my goals prior to starting the internship and I think I succeeded! It was a great accomplishment to feel like a scientist.

After looking back on the semester I think one of the biggest challenges was feeling engaged in the work and supported throughout. Again, the environment makes all the difference so having to stay a bit more independent in something that wasn't so familiar was a bit difficult to finish out the year strong with!

I will look back on these experiences as I continue my journey through academia and make more goals so I can feel that sense of achievement when I accomplish them again. It's always important to have a goal in mind along with small ones to ensure that you can persist through hardships and achieve big things!

Some Snaps from the Year!

LHSI photoshoot to promote the Internship!

Immunofluorescence image from the microscope!

Immunohistochemistry Staining!

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