- Right now, the recording has started. So you can be aware of that and then we'll move on. And Natasha and Doug, you can remind me to turn it off at the end, in case I go on with the audience questions. The Undergraduate Research and Creative Collaborations Office, just a few words about it because this office didn't exist when the panelists were students at Brandeis, it's a brand new office started in 2020. And the whole idea of this office and the mission of the office is to serve as a centralized clearing house for information and support for undergraduates who want to be involved in undergraduate research and creative projects, and especially in partnership with Brandeis faculty. Before this year, there wasn't that centralized office, and now we exist and so we're really happy to start holding a number of events, including this one. We also have a series of events called Research 101 to help students get an introduction to the landscape of research and also workshops on applying for summer funding. All right, a few words about our office. We're very small and very young. I'm Margaret Lynch the Director of the office. And I joined Brandeis a year ago today, and also team members in our office are Natasha Chaiyarat who is here right now. Hi, Natasha. Natasha is class of '22, a major in International and Global Studies and minor in Legal Studies. And she's very important to our office and functioning of the office. And she is a co-host today. So she'll be monitoring the chat and the participants window. We also have here today Doug Bafford who is a PhD student in Anthropology at Brandeis and Doug is a graduate administrative fellow for the URCC. And this is a new program this year that's grant funded that allows PhD students to get a glimpse in the window of what university administration is like. Doug was one of a number of applicants who applied for this position in the URCC. And he was the one that we selected and we're really happy to have him as part of our team. Also, we have Shannon Livingstone, another undergraduate research office assistant, and Shannon was really key in getting our office off the ground last spring. And also I want to acknowledge Wendy Cadge who's a Professor of Sociology and a Senior Associate Dean of Strategic Initiatives for the School of Arts and Sciences. Wendy was instrumental in getting resources and funding to get this office off the ground. All right, so for introductions, one thing that all the alumni have in common, who are on this panel is that they're all Brandeis alumni and they're all students who did undergraduate research. Moreover all of these panelists have one either a Schiff Undergraduate Research Fellowship and/or a Provost Undergraduate Research Fellowship. And now, these people have graduated. The panelists here had graduated between no less than one year to about 10 years ago. So they represent a span of time in recent times, and can tell you about their paths. All right, before the panels introductions just a few words about the fellowships 'cause I know we have some students here are interested in getting involved in research and applying for funding. Alright, the Schiff Undergraduate Research Fellowship provides $2,000 to students to support their project during the academic year. This fellowship is funded by a gift from the Jerome A. Schiff Foundation and the Foundation has supported Brandeis students for over 20 years. This fellowship is open for students in all disciplines. So no matter what discipline the student is interested in, whether it's arts, humanities, social sciences, or sciences they can apply for this fellowship. We have a deadline coming up. So again, for the students in the audience, the deadline is March 2nd for projects that students wanna do the next academic year. Alright, next the Provost Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship again, is open to students in all disciplines, all academic areas. And this award provides students a $5,000 stipend to support their full-time research over the summer. This is to allow students to have the capacity to do research so that a student would have money either for living expenses, rent, food, or travel or perhaps equipment or supplies that they need to do their research experience. Alright, with no further ado, I'd like to name the alumni panelists here today and then we'll go on to the interesting part of the presentation today. Alright, here we have joining us Jennifer Mandelbaum, BA '14, PhD student, University of South Carolina. Lexi Kriss, BA '11, Deputy Director of Communications, City of Providence. Brontte Hwang, BA '15, Graduate Student, Heller School. David Benger, BA '14, Research Fellow Post-JD, Harvard Law School. Usman Hameedi, BS '12, Senior Research Associate, Team Lead, Voyager Therapeutics. Avi Singer, BS '17 PhD Candidate, MIT. Jeff Liu, BS '20, MS '20 Scientific Associate, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research. Alright, these are our panelists here today. And so as a warmup question, I'm going to ask the panelists to each in turn, answer these questions. And so I think for what we'll do for order is that the panelists can share their stories in the order on this slide. So please take note if you're a panelist whether you're going first, third, or seventh whatever the case may be. Okay, here's the first questions. We'd love to hear, what are you doing now and how did you get there? So some of you graduated six months ago, others coming up on 10 years, and we'd love to hear your story. And then secondly, as kind of a warmup if you could add what was the focus of your research as a Brandeis undergraduate? Alright, I'm going to stop sharing this slide so we can see the speakers and we are ready to start. I believe Jennifer is first.

- Alright, hi everyone, I'm Jennifer Mandelbaum. I am currently a PhD student in Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior at the University of South Carolina. And I'm a program evaluator for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. I graduated from Brandeis in 2014 where I double majored in Sociology and HSSP with a minor in Women's and Gender Studies. And I was pretty hooked on public health ever since I took a class with Stuart Altman called The American Healthcare System. And it was the first time I had heard the term public health and just really fell in love with the idea of being able to do something that would hopefully have an impact on populations of people. So I think in a lot of ways my path so far has been pretty straight-forward. After I graduated, I earned a Master's in Public Health from Yale, concentrating in social and behavioral sciences and global health. And then thought, "Why not continue in school?" So I ended up applying to PhD programs and ended up at the University of South Carolina just based on the research that the faculty were doing and the resources available and it's been a really good fit. At Brandeis, I think my research was a little more varied than it is now. I think like a lot of students, I was trying to figure out what my interests were and where do I really wanna go with this degree. So I received a Schiff fellowship in the 2012 to 2013 academic year, working with Sara Shostak in the Department of Sociology. And my project was focused on community garden education as a means of primary prevention for childhood obesity. And it was very qualitative, did some ethnography and it was very different than what I did the following summer. When I received a Provost Research Grant. I worked with Carmen Sirianni, also in Sociology, to examine racial disparities in infectious diseases after the Civil War. So I did some work with GIS Mapping and policy analysis and it could not have been more different from my Schiff Fellowship, but I think both experiences really provided a great introduction to what research can be. Up until that point I really thought research was only bench work and that is very much not the case. So I'll stop there and let the other panelists fill in. But I guess just to say, well, I've always stuck with public health. The research I've done has been pretty varied.

- Thank you so much, Jennifer. We'll hear more from you in a couple of minutes. Next we have Lexi.

- Hi everyone. My name is Lexi Kriss. Margaret's making me feel very old because I'm the person on the list that will be coming up to their 10 year reunion soon. So I'm happy to be part of Brandeis and to be connecting again. And they're actually the bunch of familiar faces on here. So that's a fun too, hi, Usman and Dave and Jen. Nice to see you all. I am current... So I graduated from Brandeis in 2011, I was a midyear student. I don't know if any midyears online, but always representing the midyears with a degree in Health Science Study and Policy and a minor in Theater. I'll start with my Brandeis experience but I also worked with Sara Shostak and Jen Cleary in the Theater department to do my final project through the Schiff fellowship, where I looked at how college age women choose oral birth control, based on print advertising. And instead of writing a traditional thesis I ended up producing a play of monologues that over 300 Brandeis community members came to see, it was called Period, The End. And so that really got me thinking about communications and how we communicate health information as well as research experience, which I hadn't done in such a serious way before. So I'm also currently finishing my masters in International Relations at the Fletcher School at Tufts right now. And you will be amazed that there are graduate students who have not done the same level of research that undergrads at Brandeis have the opportunity to do. So I'm a huge proponent of applying for any of these grants. I think they're really transformative and will really help you in your future careers, even if you don't focus on that area of study. I ended up working in epidemiology for a little while and then was a TV and Radio producer for five years. And so I have a much more circuitous path than Jen; I wanted to be able to do more community facing service work. And so I applied to work at the City of Providence where I'm now the Deputy Director of Communications and coming up, I'm gonna be the official, unofficial Health Information Adviser 'cause I've been handling most of the COVID communications for the city at-large. So that's where I'm at. But all those pieces, I feel like have come together now. And when I make the 10 year launch from that project where I was looking at health communication to my current work just in a different form. Sorry for the lengthy description but 10 years, you pick up a few things along the way, so thank you all. And if I can be of any help, I'm happy to share my email afterwards and be in touch.

- Thank you, Lexi. And it wasn't lengthy at all. We're here because we wanna hear the panelist stories. Next we have Brontte.

- Yes, hello. And please let me know if my mic kind of does a weird thing. Sometimes that happens. I'm so happy to be here. So happy to see a few friendly faces. This is exciting. I graduated from Brandeis in 2015 and I had double majored in Anthropology and IGS, International Global Studies. And I'm currently just about finish my masters at the Heller School. So right now I am pursuing-- in true Brandeis fashion-- a double masters. A masters in Sustainable International Development and a Social Impact MBA. And so you can tell that I just couldn't get enough of Brandeis. I needed to come home. It's been great. Even amidst this pandemic that we're in. And when I was... I guess it was my junior year I had gotten the Provost Undergraduate Research Fund to do research on language ideology. I was very inspired in my undergraduate years and still continue to be by my advisor who was then Janet Macintosh, my most favorite. Doug probably knows. But yes. So I'm happy to say that what I was researching at the time has continued not in a research context but in a development practitioning context. And that's why I'm currently at the Heller School now to just equip myself, learn more, put more in my tool bag so I can get back out there in the field, hopefully longterm back in Namibia. I forgot to mention that. That's where I did my research, was in Namibia on... Well, actually, I guess we'll go more into our research things later on but just before Heller I was teaching elementary, middle school at a private Jewish school and also continuing every year, my work in Namibia. So yes, I'm so happy to see you all here. I think this is so great. I remember as an undergrad, I would try to go to everything and anything, and that's how you find out about stuff like this, which is really great. So I'm happy to be here.

- Thank you, Bronte. Thank you for being here. What a wonderful story. Alright. Let's hear from David now.

- Hello, first of all, thank you Margaret for inviting me to be here. Brandeis is a really special place and I jumped at any opportunity to help current students in any way that I can. As part of my college experience, I was a Roosevelt fellow and a UDR and I'm glad to be here. I was a double major in Politics and Russian Studies and a double minor in Theater and NEJS, Class of 2014. And Margaret asked what the focus of our research was. Focus is not a term that I would use to apply to my research. I started out with the Provost Research Grant to do a deep dive into Yiddish language and culture which is something I was really interested in between my freshmen and sophomore year. I use the Schiff fellowship to write a paper about this new burgeoning field of Russian Jewish immigrant stories being written in English and that particular kind of sub genre of literature. And these are the things I thought I was really interested in, in my first couple of years in college. And then my focus and my interest area really changed. And I actually used a Research Circle on Democracy and Pluralism Grant. I don't know that still exists, but it was exclusive to the Politics department, to write my senior thesis on the relationship between the International Criminal Court in the Hague and the United States and how that's changed between at the time the Bush administration and the Obama administration. So my research was kind of all over the place, but each one of those opportunities offered a chance to build a close relationship with a professor who like, by definition, if a professor is teaching at Brandeis it means they're an expert at research in the field that they've chosen. So it's always a great opportunity to learn from them and how they go about their business day to day and how they schedule their time and how they create their workflow. And so after graduating, I spent a couple of years working first in the Hague at the International Criminal Court. And then back in New York at the Manhattan District Attorney's Major Crimes and Counter Terrorism Task Force. I did a Master's in Global Affairs in China, in Beijing where I also focused on China's relationship with international legal institutions and international courts. And then I went to law school and the first couple of years of law school there isn't all that much room for research. Law school, some of you may know is a little bit like high school, at least in the first year, and that you're told where your classes are, when they're, what you're supposed to be doing and there isn't a lot of breathing room. But then toward the second half of your law school experience, you get more time. And so I did some research which was very kind of, what they call "Black Letter" law research like real case law, "where do we think the law is going" type work. and some kind of more general sociology of law research. And my research fellowship now is at the center on legal profession in a little bit more sociology of law oriented. And I'm looking at, kind of-- primarily outside of the United States, the relationship between the salary and the prestige of lawyers and the number of... And basically the gender dynamics of legal profession, particularly in Eastern Europe and Asia, but also elsewhere. And basically tracking how as the profession has become more open to women both unfortunately often salary and prestige have gone down in many of those countries for lawyers. So this is sort of the thing I'm working on now. And I do have other more traditional law projects on the back burner that I'm also working on.

- Thank you for sharing David. Everyone has such interesting and diverse stories. Alright, next, please, Usman.

- Hi everyone. My name is Usman. Shout out to Irv Epstein. I haven't seen Irv in forever. That's actually a perfect way to get into my story. I was part of Brandeis' Science Posse, class one. So the opportunity to come to Brandeis is actually a big thanks to Irv. So I graduated with a BS in Biology and minors in Chemistry, Creative Writing, and HSSP. At the time, that felt like a mix of things that I had no idea how to connect and over the last 10 years, which is so weird to say that I really... a lot of daggers there, Margaret, with the 10 years thing Even though that happened. I really made it a purpose to make that happen. I think rather than chasing after job descriptions I let my passions guide me towards what I really want to do. So mirroring exactly what I studied at Brandeis. I am a scientist. I teach and I'm also still a poet. And all those identities and those professions center around the fact that people are more than to be able to do this independently without-- letting my own drive, to see what I want to do has been really rewarding. So on a day to day, what that looks like. So with Voyager, we're working on neurological disorders and my work is really important for getting those platforms into the clinic. As a poet, I'm still performing and doing a lot of Zoom teaching. I'm still helping out Jamil, Jamil and I are like colleagues at this point which has been really lovely, probably like my longest relationship at this point. So it's been really wonderful to become more of his peer because that's really allowed me to learn from him. I think most of most recently at Voyager I was put in charge of creating a D&I committee. So Jamil was obviously the best person to have as a mentor and a friend in that regard. As a teacher setting up an artist in residency at Salem High School, I've been working with mass poetry for two years and it's all been fun. And I would say, especially as Brandesians, we come with a lot of diverse interests and there's a lot of people just like me who are chemists but in theater and so on and so forth. And it's important to not think that's weird after you graduate. I think there is so much space to really weave those things together and create something unique that's just for you. I have so much ownership of my journey because I had to make it happen. It would've been very easy for me to just stick with the science thing and just go from there but I would just feel so...not fulfilled and I've always had my ups and downs with things. Irv knows that as well. But ironically, when I look back, everything just seems so linear. Because even those pitfalls, those moments where I was really just down, I didn't know what to do, I needed those because that really helped me see what my priorities actually are. So just hang in there. In terms of research, when I first got to Brandeis, I reached out to Av about getting in touch with Dr. Christine Thomas. I was really excited about chemistry back in high school. AP Chem was my favorite class. And I actually, asked for his advice. While I don't naturally do in organic chem now, the lab dexterity that I have is totally because of Christine and her mentorship. Specifically with the Schiff fellowship, I had a chance to work with Bruce Foxman and he's an expert in x-ray crystallography. And then from that experience, I realized that I really liked technology and toys and those experiences together got me my first job at Sloan Kettering and then the rest is history. So it may not look like you're... It's very rare to have these exact experiences of Brandeis translate linearly. But I think the most important thing you've got to really look at is just the skills you're learning along the way in that journey.

- Thank you, Usman. It's nice to hear that... I hear this story over and over again how Brandeis students are able to really explore and expand their interests in very different areas. And there's no conflict in doing that because Brandeis provides an environment that allows students to thrive in more than one area. So thank you for sharing that. Next we have Avi.

- Hi, thank you for having me. So I'm Avi. I graduated in 2017 with a BS in Biochemistry. I think I was a recipient of the Provost fellowship but it's been a little while. Now, I'm a PhD student in the Biology program at MIT. So just down the road. And I started there right after graduating from Brandeis. So I had always been interested in science and I think along with half of the incoming Brandeis class I started out as a pre-med student. And my dad told me that I needed to get a job, make some money, and also that my older brother who was in medical school at the time, had worked in the lab and that had helped them get into medical school. So I just sent out a bunch of emails to professors as a freshmen, asking if I could do any work in their lab and I didn't even really know what that meant at the time. And luckily, one of them actually who had just started his lab up gave me an opportunity to do some work in his lab. And that was Professor Timothy Street. And Timothy Streets lab, or Timo as we call him, I worked on a certain type of a protein molecule that helps fold other protein molecules called the chaperone and dissected how different molecules in the body can interact with one another, which is basically what I'm studying in graduate school right now. And I just wanted to say that at least in my field Brandeis is known for prepping their undergrads very well. And it's like a badge of pride to have gone to Brandeis and to have done undergraduate research there. And I know for a fact that all of the Brandeis alumni that I've met at MIT were the badge of pride with honor. So take advantage of it.

- Thank you, Avi. Alright, we have one more panelist to give us an introduction, Jeff, please.

- Hi, I'm Jeff graduated last May in 2020 with the combined BS in Bio and Neuro and a MS in Biology. That was part of the combined four year, BS MS biology programs. So that's how I ended up with both. I graduated seven months ago so I do not have as nearly interesting career stories like any other panelists. I currently work at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research which is the research arm of Novartis Pharmaceuticals. It's based in Cambridge. My work currently focuses on finding next generation of markets for cancer therapeutics. How I got to where I work was not too atypical. I did science in undergrad and seven months later I'm still doing science, shockingly. At Brandeis, I spent about three years doing research in Leslie Griffith's lab studying the neurobiology of fly behaviors, specifically looking at memory and learning. It's a huge pivot from what I do now but the skills I learned in Leslie's lab like critical thinking and just basic lab techniques, really definitely helped me out at the job I'm working right now. I'm also fortunate enough to be funded for all three summers at Brandeis. The summer after freshman year I got the Kubrick grant which is the quantitative biology research community grant. Sophomore year, I got the Provost grant and my junior year I got the Computational Neuroscience grant. So I got really lucky there that Brandeis was able to fund me for all three years really helped out just living with-- at college. And what I did at Leslie's lab, really sparked the interest in doing scientific research and that's why I've stuck with it.

- Thank you, Jeff. Well, your experiences may not be as long in years as the others they're fresh. And so we're really happy that you're able to join us today because it was important to have like a recent undergraduate on the panel. Alright, what we'll do now is there's one more set of questions that I sent to the panelists before tonight. And the panelists, we can go in the same order for the sake of simplicity and the panels can pick one or two or three. You certainly don't have to pick all of them. We'll do one more round of that. And then after that, we'll have plenty of time for questions from the students and then the breakout rooms. So to remind everybody about the questions, I'm gonna share my screen once more and then we'll have, as I said, just now one more round. All right, I'll just read all the questions. And again, the panelists certainly don't expect you to answer all of these. And some of you actually touched on some of these questions. You either expand your answer or choose another. We'd love to hear a little bit more if you'd like about what sparked your interest in research, how and when you first got involved and again some people address these. How did the Schiff or Provost research funding, impact your ability to do research? Next, what roles did your faculty mentors play in your research experience and how did you find your faculty mentor? Next, to what extent did your research experience, expand your knowledge in a subject area or your professional and academic network. And finally how has doing research influenced your career goals and professional and personal development? And I'd like to give a shout out to Natasha Chaiyarat, our assistant at the URCC who made these questions for our panelists. Thank you, Natasha. I'm going to stop the share and most start in. And some of you may have more or less to say but we can go around one more time and let's start again with Jennifer.

- All right, thanks. It's really interesting to hear everyone's... All the panelists paths where they're now and what they did at Brandeis. And thanks to Natasha for these questions. I think they're really fun to look over and think on, ahead of the panel. So I'll touch upon a few of them. I don't think I can stress enough how valuable it was to receive mentorship through these funding mechanisms. Lexi and I were just on a panel last week, led by Professor Shostak talking about our experiences as HSSP alumni and Sara was a mentor for both of our shift projects, too. And to just have that experience with a faculty member you admire, I think it's just a wonderful experience like Dave had mentioned, your professors are experts in whatever they're teaching and they're so enthusiastic about this work. So if you're interested in what they're doing just go to office hours and talk to them about it. I think building those relationships and getting to know a faculty member and either figuring out... If you're interested in research if there's a project you could work on together or even just talking about the fields is a great experience and definitely something to take advantage of as an undergraduate. You don't necessarily get a lot of that outside of college. So that was a ramble but I did find my faculty mentors through taking classes with them and just going to office hours and talking with them and just having a genuine interest in the work they were doing and wanting to do something related to it. I think a lot of this comes down to just finding the right fit and making sure that if there's something you're interested in, that you're networking with faculty members who share similar interests and networking is a big word. And it's really just like talking to someone it doesn't have to be a bigger deal than it than it is. I think the faculty members I worked with really helped me to shape the questions I was asking and think through the projects I was working on in different ways. I think, especially with Professor Shostak, she really helped me drill into what questions I wanted to ask and use my project to gain a deeper understanding of the topic I was working on. And just trying to look through some of these other questions. I think that the research I did Definitely had an influence on the work I'm doing today, I'm doing a lot of work around childhood obesity prevention which directly relates to kind of the central focus of my Schiff projects. I'm still very interested in health inequities and addressing those. And although I don't really do work with infectious disease anymore, that health equity piece was a large part of my Provost Research fellowship work. So that's carried over into what I do now in chronic disease prevention and program evaluation. I think also just the skills you learn from doing a research project whether it's just the skills you gained, putting together an application, learning how to write a budget, learning how to justify the work you're doing and make it clear to people who might be working outside of your discipline, why what you're doing matters and why it's important to be funded. Those are very much transferable skills. And I guess just to end, I'll just briefly touch upon how the funding impacted my ability to do research. I think for sure, just having the funding itself and having dedicated time to work on research. So instead of working a job over the summer, I was able to use my Provost funds to pay for my living expenses and really focus on that work. So having that dedicated time was really nice to have, I think there... I'm not sure if this still happens, but with the Schiff fellowship, we had like monthly or bi-monthly lunches with all the fellows and got to talk about our different projects. And so having that community of of fellows and hearing about different kinds of scholarship was a great experience, I think is so emblematic of the bigger Brandeis experience too just like hearing these different perspectives and having access to different kinds of work that you might not otherwise have been. And then again, just to circle back working with the faculty members and getting to know them on a more personal level too and developing those relationships. And those are some of the mentors I had as an undergrad and I'm still in touch with. I guess I'll end my rambling and let other people fill in.

- Thanks Jennifer. No, those were great tips. And I love your saying that networking is just talking because sometimes that can be something that sounds scary to people who haven't done it. So thanks for demystifying that. And yes, it is great to hear how all those pieces fit together for you. Let's hear from Lexi next. Thanks Margaret and Natasha for the questions. I'm just gonna touch on a couple of these. I think sometimes it's hard to imagine how you ask a professor to be your research advisor. And so for me, I took a couple of classes with Professor Shostak and I'd taken a class with Jen Cleary. And so I had gotten to know them and I was a Peer Assistant for Professor Shostak and then guest lectured through that role for the class. So we got to know each other organically. So when it came time to say like, "Here's research I'm interested in." I think she might have actually even told me about the opportunity to apply for a Schiff fellowship. So definitely leaning into a class or taking multiple classes with a professor that is teaching in an area of interest I think can help. Some of those experiences happen naturally like very different than Avi. That's awesome that you emailed a bunch of professors and someone agreed, but some-- it just happens in different ways. So for me it was developing that relationship and we continue to have, I would say it's like a friend relationship at this point where I can bounce ideas off of Professor Shostak and we can talk more openly. So that's like really rewarding to see those relationships grow over the years and how they morph as you both like be-- as you transform into your career. So that's the mentor piece. And I think a really good mentor can tell you where to focus and also tell you when they can't help you which I think Brandeis faculty are really good at... They'll put you in another direction if they feel like they can't answer your question which all this Brandeis talk is just making me really excited to hear about all the interdisciplinary projects and how people have continued to keep those passions alive. I think that is what it's all about. And even though I don't study women's health so much anymore, I still give my Schiff fellowship research project synopsis, in a lot of job interviews if nothing more than to show like creative thinking and being an innovator in some way. No one wants to hear, being on the other end of interviewing at this point I don't want people to hear people tell me that they're an innovator. I wanna see how they are. So when someone can explain me or like go in and show that they have non-traditional thinking or interdisciplinary thinking, that's the kind of person that I would want on my team. So I always feel like that's really great to be able to highlight that work even if it's not directly related, because a lot of the people that I've come across have not had the opportunity to do independent research. And so to be able to like work independently to creatively problem solve like Jen said to work with a budget, all of these are jobs skills. I think that if using the right narrative can really help you land the next thing that you're hoping to work on. So the experience just helped me personally in so many ways, just as a personal growth experience. So I really encourage people to apply and you never know where it might lead and it's okay if your project changes course also which I think a few other people have mentioned too where you might go into it thinking that it's gonna be one thing and then you end up producing a play and it's... So you have to be open to your own journey in that way. And I think that models professional trajectories as well.

- Thank you, Lexi. And thanks for giving all the students job tips about not just saying something it's saying you're a certain adjective but backing it up by a specific example. That's marvelous advice. Brontte, please.

- Wow, I'm just like stocking in, everything that I'm trying to get, it has said so far. Well, so let's see. I can just start off with saying that while the Provost Undergraduate Research Fund was actually the second stepping stone in this journey that started at Brandeis and is now continuing for now it's like seven plus years. And that first stepping stone which is another amazing opportunity at Brandeis was the Hiatt Career Center's World of Work Fellowship. And that was the summer after my sophomore year which brought me to Namibia for the first time. And that summer I had started teaching a group of over-aged children. So they were ages seven to 15, but they weren't able to go to school either because they couldn't afford the books or uniforms or because the classrooms were just full. And so I had spent that summer teaching there and I would say that that summer was the moment when all my interests and passions and skills just came together in this exciting dynamic way. And it launched this almost eight year journey. And it really helped me focus my studies, focus what I was doing at Brandeis for the rest of my time there. So that summer following my junior year, I wasn't actually looking to do research in the beginning, I was looking for a way to get back to Namibia, and that's how I found out about the Provost Research fund. So although I wasn't originally planning to do research I'm actually so grateful that I did, because the research I ended up conducting my second year in Namibia through the Provost Research fund was really critical in shaping my relationship with the community that I've been working with as well as my approach to International Community Development in general. I think the title of my research proposal at the time was... The full title was, Language Ideology in a Namibian Squatter Camp and its Effect on Parents' Decision to Send their Children to School. So this was language ideology in a post-colonial context. And I had gone in with this idea that the parents would be so would be hesitant or resistant to send their children to school when they were primarily teaching in English and offered cons, which were colonial languages. And after I conducted the research, I was actually in hindsight so glad that my hypothesis was incorrect because it was such a humbling moment that really emphasized our privilege and tendency towards ethnocentricity, even when we think we're not being that way or trying not to be that way as students in the United States. And so as an anthropology major, I thought I was being as least ethnocentric as possible. And then I realized that even when we talk about other nations and peoples in our classrooms we're often assuming how they feel or how they should feel or a lot of times getting offended for them. And when you actually get out there on the field, it's just such a different story. And it's just makes everything so real. And like I said, it was so humbling. And so I'm really glad that right at the beginning of my journey in Namibia, I had done this research that put a halt to that kind of thinking and it made it so real and clear to me, the importance of letting people speak for themselves and not super imposing our standards and way of seeing life on others. So even now, as I'm pursuing my Master's in Sustainable International Development, we're constantly questioning this field do we even call it development? What is our role as development practitioners? What can we do? What can we not do or what should we not do? And so I would say that the research back, you know, back, maybe that's seven years ago was super critical and research is such a wonderful opportunity to dig deep into something that you're passionate about or something that you think you will be going deep into. And I would say maybe it's even a responsibility to do that research before you go on ahead and do what you think you're going to do or what you plan on doing. So, yeah, I'm just so grateful. And I hope this can also be a great learning opportunity also just to always being... I think maybe humility is the key word for today, just being humble and everything that we do and research is a great way to do that.

- Thank you, Brontte. I love you're sharing that research is still interesting and satisfying even when your hypothesis is not supported. So that's a great takeaway. David.

- So first of all, I'm so glad that this thing is being recorded because I hope that all of these golden nuggets of wisdom that people have been sharing are going to be like distilled and distributed, because I wish I had all of this guidance from these amazing people on the panel when I was a student. And not a single thing that has been said so far I disagree with. So I'm going to resist the urge to simply re-say what has been said and try if I can't add something different which is that, first of all, I agree with what Jen said with regard to networking. We think of networking as like, "Oh, that thing that we do at that evening event, where we put on the name tag and have to figure out how to hold that cocktail glass and a plate at the same time." But it's actually every interaction that you have in a professional setting which is an intimidating way to think about it but it's also a tremendous opportunity to build really casual relationships with someone who can be a tremendous asset in your professional career, irrespective of whether that person's professional trajectory is one that you aspire to. So the thing I would say is, first of all don't be afraid of cold emailing any professor or even graduate student. If you're interested in their work, that's the beauty. At Brandeis, we have these fantastic PhD students and Heller students and IBS students and whatnot. And they often have really, really interesting backgrounds, really interesting work, definitely use them as a resource. Basically in cold emailing academic settings, I think one time out of 10, you may get no response. And nine times out of 10, you'll get a warm response. You'll almost never get a negative response. I got one negative response to a cold email, once that was a kind of, "Who do you think you are emailing me out of the blue?" That was when I was studying abroad. And it was a like adjunct visiting lecturer at the university that I was studying at in Europe. And so then I emailed his PhD supervisor and I was like, "I'm really interested in this work that your PhD student did. Would you talk to me about it? 'Cause he seems too busy." And so that guy's professor ended up getting coffee with me. So it ended up working out in the end, but really don't be afraid of the cold email. And moreover I would say these grants when I was an undergrad, I'm sure they still are quite competitive. The Schiff, the Provost funding, all of these fundings are quite competitive. And if your research is dependent on traveling to a place like Namibia or wherever else in the world, I did some research in Cambodia as well. I forgot to mention, and if it cannot be done without that funding fine. But if it can be, if you can find a way, still do the research, still pursue a semester long or a year long independent project of some kind with close mentorship from a professor, even if there's not like a clear fellowship line that you can put on your CV for what it was called, do it any way. Because as Lexi talked about, it's a great thing to talk about in interviews whenever you're applying for jobs, especially non-academic jobs, but also PhDs and things. People will know that every anyone coming out of Brandeis will have known how to go through a semester, doing the readings, writing the papers and the tests, but the fact that you were able to take a self-directed project, own it, build your schedule, set your deadlines, create goals and complete it, all while working closely with an adult, not just for an adult but with an adult is a really impressive thing to showcase and to talk about. I would also say... And this, some people may disagree with me on but I would say, don't actually worry all that much about what the subject of the research is. Especially in your early years in college, it should be something that's interesting to you but don't spend too much time thinking about whether it's publishable, whether it's necessarily like some kind of big new contribution to the field. Don't worry too much about those things, worry about whether it fascinates you and interest you. And if it's something that you want to be thinking about for X period of time. And make sure that you have a professor who is working with you, who has at least a passing interest in the subject but moreover has a real kind of investment and interest in your success and will take the time out of her schedule or his schedule to send you an email saying, "Hey, you said you'd have X number of words by this date, why don't you have them?" And in fact it may seem annoying when it's happening to you but it's actually a tremendous gift that, that professor is giving you by being on top of you like that at this early stage of learning how to create your own research project. So that's the thing I would say, when choosing a mentor in research, think more about the professor and your supervisor than necessarily the nitty gritty of the subject. I think the only criteria is that, you ask a research question that can reasonably be answered in some real way within the ambit of what you can do, both monetarily, language wise, for example, don't undertake a research question where you don't have the language skills to do it, et cetera. But if you can answer the question in some way, the mentor and the professor you're working with in that relationship that you can generate, I think is much more important than actually the final product, the paper that comes out the other end, it's really, really much more about the process than what you produce. And so if you have interest in different fields, try and research in different fields. I don't know that much about the hard sciences but presumably you could spend some time in a bio lab and perhaps you could spend some time in a chem lab. You can try research and comparative literature, you could try research in social science discipline anthropology, or whatever, if you took intro to anthropology, but you were really interested in the linguistics component of it. You don't have time in your schedule to take a class with Janet Macintosh, cold email her and ask her if she's willing to supervise some kind of paper in that end. I have no doubt that she will be. So yeah, I would say, make sure you take some time to think about what your goals are when thinking about, what the research you're trying to craft. And I would say those goals should be in relationship with the mentor and the learning experience of creating the research project. And I think secondarily the output of the project itself, it's great. It would be great if you create something that really changes the thinking in a particular field. That's wonderful, especially if you're talking about your senior thesis, but ultimately don't put too much pressure on that. Really focus more on the process.

- Thank you, Dave. And thanks also for noting that the undergraduates at the age of 19 or 20 don't have to choose their final life's topic when they're doing your research project that you can certainly shift or change your interests. And that the process is really key as well as the mentorship. Usman, please.

- Yeah, I'll actually just segue from there because everyone brought up some excellent points. I wanna make sure we get into the question on break out rooms. Like again, I started in inorganic chemistry and I think the most impactful part of that was just being in a space that made me not afraid of labs, there's benzene, there's all these hazardous chemicals. Christine-- Dr. Thomas, she really made me comfortable in the lab. And again, the dexterity that I learned there is something I still use today. My hands are just so comfortable in lab because of that. When you're used to working in a nitrogen glove box and you're really cramped for space, your hands just get used to that. And it was such a wonderful experience for me because coming from Brooklyn that was my first time being exposed to any kind of lab. So I can speak directly to the experience of a science major. We're often taught that science fits in these nice, neat blocks: you take bio, take chem, take org and there's not real time to blend everything. And in the real world that isn't exactly what it is. You don't just focus on the biology problems, you also can think about how molecules are working together and especially more so in industry. And Jeff can also explain that too. Industry, that's a big part of that because you have to be so creative. Scientists are necessarily taught as creative, but it's more creative than poetry in a way to me. Like now where I'm at in my career, where I have to think about like writing for certain things and certain deadlines, it's very scientific. It's exactly, what is the goal? What am I doing? When am I applying for this? And then that's how it is. Whereas my time in the lab is actually much more creative ironically. So taking the time to also build the foundation, especially as scientist at Brandeis, we're in a rush to be surgeon, like immediately. As soon as we get in, "I wanna be a surgeon, I'm trying to cut something tomorrow." And it doesn't really work like that. And you need the time to really build the foundation because then you can really appreciate what's going on. It's really hard to grasp how frustrating cancer can be if you don't really take the time to learn biology and how devastating some of these neurological diseases are. Because they're just simple problems that are, if changed a little bit, can just devastate someone's life. So to understand that foundation is so critical, and you're lucky to be at a place like Brandeis because faculty naturally want to help you and just love having these types of conversations. So I think in some other institutions it'd be hard to do that cold email, but here don't be afraid. If you're on a website specifically, again talking to science students. So like, "Oh, I was always interested in Alzheimer's." Just reach out to somebody. Maybe they're busy, but I'm sure they'll always reach out to you. And it's not the professor, again I like the suggestion, like the grad students. Grad students would absolutely love that. I'm sure they're dying for that type of stuff because it helps them to cause a big part of being a grad student is mentoring. So you're giving them the opportunity to find a reinvigoration in their science careers. I'm sure they've run like 50 Western blots and nothing worked and now you're giving them a chance to find that passion again and you're helping somebody while helping yourself.

- Great, thank you. And thank you for encouraging students to reach out to Brandeis grad students. Avi, please.

- Hi. Alright, I'll give a disclaimer again that I can only speak from a science research perspective. And I also, going out of order want to reiterate or what was just said about reaching out to graduate students. Graduate students would love to have an undergrad do some research for them. So definitely reach out to them. So I'll address the role of faculty mentor, at least in my research experience. And I guess reiterate that I found my faculty mentor by shooting out a bunch of really cold emails. I didn't know anything about research when I wanted to start getting involved in research. I knew very little about science. I would probably be pretty embarrassed if I went back and I read that email that I sent out to all those professors. So I've resisted doing that. I think my first round of emails wasn't really good because I didn't get very many responses. I didn't get any mean responses. And in fact, one professor took the time to reply and tell me how I could fix up the email so that I'd be more likely to get a positive response for the second batch of emails that I'd send out. And that was really nice. So definitely don't be afraid to send out those cold emails. So I would say that my faculty mentor Timothy Street and finding him as a faculty mentor was probably one of those few points in your life that you could point to and say that really changed the path in life that you were on. So I can't overstate how important that was. And he just happened to reply to one of those cold emails and then invited me to come meet with him. He was a brand new professor at the time, I met with him in his dark lab, and he was cleaning a bunch of his own glass ware. No one had been in the lab yet. In fact, I was the first person that joined the lab. And there's a post-doc in the lab I'm in now who is a graduate student in the lab when I was there as an undergrad. So I like to tell him I was the first person to join the lab. So when I met with him he gave me this talk about what it means to do research and research can take awhile, research can be frustrating, he gave me the talk. And that's how I knew that he would be somewhat of a hands-on mentor and that he was someone that I should tag along and follow and listen to what he has to teach. And like it or not at least in the sciences, your scientific advisor and the people that you surround yourself with really influence how you think as a scientist and different scientists think different ways. So that can be really important. And I would also agree with what was said about the topic of your research. I think the topic of your research really isn't that important as an undergrad and learning what it means to do research and going through the research process is really where the real value lies. So just something to think about. And the last thing I would say is that it's never too late to get involved with undergraduate research, but I would definitely say that the earlier you get involved the better. And I think Dave, you were talking about trying out different types of research, at least in the non-scientific field. But I think at least in the sciences I would say maybe try sticking with one research project as an undergrad and seeing the process through because it can take a long time.

- Thank you, Avi for that perspective on science projects. And next is Jeff.

- I'm gonna be echoing a lot of what Dave and Usman said already, but don't really worry about finding the perfect story or what you're really passionate about. Just worry more about what you can get out of research. Like an undergrad, I looked at fruit fly learning. Now I look at how to kill cancer better. I think the only way to relate is that fruit flies sometimes get cancer. So the more important things about doing research as an undergrad is what you can get out of research. And I think that what research could really teach you is the critical thinking skills that are unfortunately, not as common as they used to be. But that's where we are. But doing research teaches you how to ask the right type of question. So it's really easy to just ask an unfocused question, just like a random thought you have, a curiosity about the world. But spending time in research allows you try to focus that question down and turn it into actionable steps that you can take to try and find the answer to that question. And more importantly, you can also actually take those steps. You can try to work to understand what happened, What is the data you got? How can you interpret this? And more importantly, how can you interpret this data such that other people will also understand what you do? It's really easy to just like, say, "Yep, this makes sense to me, that pops out on a paper," but if one person sees a paper and doesn't understand it, what's the point of what you actually did? You need to make sure that what you do actually has impact and actually has meaning to others, which is a really important skill that research can teach you. And another thing that I think is a really important part of research is understanding rejection and understanding failure. I think over three years I spent in Leslie's lab. I spent like the first year and a half troubleshooting and failing, which wasn't pleasant. But it teaches you a lot about trying to look back at what you did and understanding why it failed and trying to take the knowledge of what you did and try to turn it into something that actually works. Before doing research I was like, "Alright, I failed." Just toss it in the trash, move on with your life. But spending time research means you can't really do that. This is your job. So you had to figure it out. What are you gonna do? How are you gonna take your failure and turn it into something useful and meaningful? And trying to jumping off of that and looking practically like Dave and Avi and Usman said like, don't worry too much about cold calling people about just reaching out to people. Alright, so you don't get an email back. That's a rejection, so what? They probably won't remember you as much more than, "Oh, a student emailed me, that's fun." And at least you get the practice of putting yourself out there and distilling your work into a concise manner that other people can understand which is the really important part. Don't focus too much about the rejection but what you can get out of it and what you can get it in research.

- Thank you, Jeff. Everyone had a really unique and individual perspective on their experiences but there were some common threads as you all pointed out.