Conference Attendance

On this page, you see two photographs of my undergraduate students presenting at the 2016 Midwest Regional Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) meeting (March, 2016). SETAC conferences are excellent for students interested in learning about the field of environmental sciences because there is a lot of emphasis on including research from academia, industry, and government and fostering collaborations amongst the different sectors. The atmosphere at SETAC meetings is always very friendly and allows students to interact with senior researchers over lunch or drinks at the poster session.

Presenting research at a conference is a big achievement for an undergraduate. Brian Ferrer, a third year undergraduate in the chemistry department, had been working with me for over a year and while his poster focused mostly on recent results, he worked for a long time to learn all of the methods and analysis that went into his project. Madison Czerwinski, a second year undergraduate in the Environmental Studies and Political Science departments started working with me in September 2015, and really jumped into her project and got a lot accomplished in a short amount of time. Both students did very well at the conference and were able to meet other people who do research in our field.

Reflection

Mentoring undergraduates and helping them prepare to present at a conference was also a big achievement for me. In earlier mentoring relationships, I struggled to find projects that could be compartmentalized to fit an undergraduate schedule and fit with the interests and abilities of the students. As my research has advanced and I have gained experience, it has been easier to break off chunks of the research that I want to do and entrust them to someone else. Brian and Madison's projects were especially successful. A big reason for our shared success was having clear expectations in place. When we started the projects in Fall of 2015, I had each student fill out an Independent Research Contract detailing my expectations, their research objectives, and a planned schedule. Having everything laid out from the beginning was helpful for everyone throughout the semester.

Mentoring students has increased my own self efficacy as a scientist, and helped me figure out that I would like to continue supervising research in the future. I love the part of research that is coming up with ideas and project plans and figuring out how to best interpret data, but I could do without all of the bench top work. To me, working with others who are interested in different aspects of a project is one of the best parts of science.