Major: Biology with Concentration and Public Health
From: Austin, TX
Texas Genetics Society was the first research conference I had ever attended. Going in, I did not know what to expect and was a little nervous to present our poster to graduate and postdoc students. During the conference, we attended all the presentations given by mostly graduate and postdoc students and it was interesting to hear about the various studies being conducted. Since it was a genetics conference, there were a lot of different kinds of research presented all in the realm of genetics. It was interesting to hear about the years of in depth research conducted by many of the labs. From listening to research conducted on other areas of genetics, I felt like I learned a lot but also that I have a lot to learn about genetics.
There were a couple people that came to listen to our poster and for the most part they were impressed that we knew a lot about our project specifically and the overall goals of the lab. Though we just presented a poster, it was good practice for how to present our data and conclusions in an effective manner. Presenting our poster to others who had more experience in the science field also taught me how to explain the procedures with the correct scientific terminology and how to answer their questions. Going to the conference gave me the experience and confidence to present my current and future research. I joined the lab January of 2018 and have learned a lot so far. I had Cell Biology with Dr. Aiello and I remember that the genetics unit was my favorite. I found out that Dr. Aiello does genetics research and once I learned more about his projects I was really interested in joining the lab. I had wanted to do research during my undergraduate career and his research seemed like a good fit for me. I got involved in this research project because currently one person had been working on it and this project had been going on for almost two years. Dr. Aiello thought it would be good for me to work on the project as well to help on getting the data and to work with someone who had already been in the lab for a while.