Morgan State Undergrads “Spring into Maryland Science” at the SOP

Day-long event introduces science majors to the variety of research career opportunities

By Becky Ceraul
April 14, 2010

Nearly a dozen biology and chemistry majors from Morgan State University in Baltimore visited the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy on April 6 for a first-hand look at the life of a pharmaceutical sciences graduate student and for an introduction into the wide range of research opportunities that exist in the field.

The day-long visit, part of the School’s new Spring Into Maryland Science (SIMSI) program, was organized by Sarah Michel, PhD, an assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences (PSC) at the School of Pharmacy, and Holly Cymet, PhD, an assistant professor of chemistry at Morgan State. It is part of the educational component of Michel’s National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a five year, $570,000 grant she received in 2007 for her research on iron substitution and oxidative damage in zinc finger proteins.

“For the CAREER Award, I proposed building upon a research partnership I established with Dr. Cymet that involved mentoring Morgan State undergraduates,” says Michel. “I wanted to develop a program that targeted undergraduates who are interested in science and raise their awareness of scientific research and the careers one can pursue with a PhD.”

The goals of the SIMSI program, in addition to introducing students to career opportunities, are to provide skills to strengthen their academic performance, provide mentors and role models for the undergraduates in current PSC graduate students, provide innovative teaching opportunities for PSC graduate students, and stimulate teaching and research collaborations between Morgan State and School of Pharmacy faculty.

During the day-long visit, students such as Ghea Barden, a junior biology major at Morgan State, heard from faculty members about their research programs, learned about the PSC graduate program, and spent one-on-one time in the lab with graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. “The main thing I learned was the difference between the PharmD program and the PhD program,” Barden said. “Everyone I met was so passionate about their work and explained it in a way we could understand. I’m definitely more interested in research after today’s experience.”

“While we encourage our students to pursue whatever excites them most, we wanted to expose students to other career paths in the sciences, including the pursuit of a PhD and the job opportunities it provides,” Cymet says.

Michel wants to expand the program to a multi-day event in which the students spend more time in the lab working with their graduate student mentors. She has established a Facebook group that enables the Morgan State students to stay connected with their SIMSI mentors. “I’ll be posting information on research internships here and elsewhere, applying to graduate programs, and other types of research career opportunities.”

“I was really excited about the students who visited,” Michel says. “They asked good questions, were very engaged in the activities, and got excited about research, a field many of them had not previously considered.”