Major: Biology & French
Minor: Chemistry
From: Lufkin, TX
I work in the Aiello lab, and presenting our work at conferences is a requirement to remain a member in good standing. I was invited to present my work at the South Eastern Regional Yeast Meeting (SERYM), although there are a number of conferences we attend. I was also able to bring back a revised form of my poster presentation to the Austin College community, and share the stylistic and scientific techniques I learned at SERYM at the Austin College Scholarship Conference. At SERYM, I was given the opportunity to present the research I am working on at Austin College to the scientific community of yeast biologists in the Southeast. Given that I work in a lab that uses yeast, or Saccharomyces cerevisiae, as a model system, this was an invaluable experience to have during my undergraduate career. I was given the opportunity to present my work both as a talk and a poster, experiences which I truly enjoyed and learned a lot from. During my talk, I fielded questions from scientists who study yeast for a living, and the feedback I received was that I did this very well, and that people in attendance were impressed by my style and delivery. The poster, for me, was more relaxed, since I presented the same day I gave my talk. I only saw people visit my poster who were either truly interested in an aspect of my work I wasn’t able to present in a 12-minute talk, or who wanted to come by and congratulate me for a job well done. I think that my education as a student-researcher at Austin College is truly what led to my success presenting at SERYM. I’m constantly being asked to think critically and interpret the data that I generate, which leads to a deeper understanding of the biology involved in the experiments that I do. Having that deeper understanding is critical to being able to effectively communicate and present the work that I have spent an entire semester on, so I am so grateful to have been able to apply my knowledge successfully to members of the scientific community.