Last month, ten students from diverse academic and cultural backgrounds traveled from all over the country to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, marking the start of the NIGMS-funded Biophysical Society Summer Course. These students will spend the next 11 weeks immersed in biophysics research, lectures, and seminars. Course Co-Directors Mike Jarstfer and Barry Lentz have set up a summer schedule including lectures by UNC faculty as well as seminars by visiting speakers. Outside of the classroom, students will spend their summer working in UNC research labs that they selected based on their own scientific interests. By the end of the summer, students will have spent enough time in the labs to have sufficient data for a poster presentation at a scientific conference, such as the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting. The Summer Course in Biophysics is not all work and no play! Students will partake in field trips and social activities, such as a day trip to the beach, a minor league baseball game, Independence Day BBQs, and a team-building ropes course. A reunion for current and past Summer Course students is planned for the middle of the summer, where the current class will present their preliminary research to visiting alumni. Professional development sessions to help students plan their scientific career will be held periodically throughout the summer. Meet the 2013 Summer Course students:
Augustine Ajuogu
Northwest University
Daniel Cantu
Texas A&M, Corpus Christi
Jaime Ramirez
Rio Hondo College
Shawn Helmueller
University of Minnesota, Duluth
Johnnie Wright
Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis
Mariel Jimenez
University of Puerto Rico, Rio Pedras
Joseph Kousouros
Hunter College
Quenton Bubb
Johns Hopkins University
Josh Mannheimer
Colorado State University
Joseph Park
University of Florida, Gainesville