The Jesuit senior nervously walks up to the black stage in the center of the room. Facts and figures quickly pulse through his mind, as he eagerly hopes to present his summer project. The Medical Society members give him a warm round of applause as he walks up to the podium, calming his nerves for his presentation.
This was the scene on October 21st as three seniors presented their summer research internships through the STARS program. Sean Howard ’16, Alejandro Rey Hipolito ’16, and Aaron Vengalil ’16 all took part in the program this past summer and gave presentations to the Medical Society, detailing their experiences and encouraging students to apply for the following years.
The STARS program stands for Science Teacher Access to Resources at Southwestern. It is a program through UT Southwestern, to help improve the quality of science education for students in North Texas by making UT Southwestern Medical Center’s vast educational resources available to middle and high school science teachers. The program, which was started in 1991, has many goals, some of which include, to broaden the knowledge base of science teachers, to increase science awareness, to provide instructional aids, to provide ongoing support for students, and to stimulate an appreciation of health-related careers.
Each year, Jesuit encourages a members of the Medical Society to apply to the program following their Junior year. The programs essentially allows students to pair with a doctor who is their “host.” The student will have a topic of research which they will study in depth over the course of the summer, for Howard, that was creating a blood biomarker panel for autism using peptoids and proteins. The programs lasts 8 weeks and can offer valuable insight into medical research.
Medical Society president, Sean Howard ’16, took the opportunity this past summer to take part in the program and experience the medical field up close. Howard commented on giving his presentation and being a part of the program saying “knowing this was one of the biggest recruitment times for potential junior candidates, I was really nervous, especially since it had been a few months since I had been in the lab and looked at the research. I had talked to my post doctorate mentor for two hours the night before going over everything. That conversation alone shows how great my experience was and how awesome my lab was. I can still keep in touch and hang out with them. In the end, the presentations and everything all worked out really well.”
The presentations were really well received by the students, Aaron Olivo ’17 attended the presentations and told the Roundup, “It was really cool to get to listen to the presentations. It really pushed me towards wanting to apply to the program, so I could have the same type of experience they had.” His praises for the presentation were echoed by many of the other members of the Medical Society who listened in on the presentations, like Will Aberger ’17 who remarked “The presentations went really well, they were super informative while still being really fun.” As for the Club Moderator Mr. Von Schlehenried commented “I think the day was a success… I hope that some people found it helpful in some way – or at least a little interesting at some level.”
Make sure to congratulate those members of the Medical Society who gave presentations on the great jobs they did!
