On March 24, the department hosted a group of eight students who participate in the WTCC STEM Academic and Research Training (START) Program.
With a mission to increase students’ retention success and improve engineering, quantitative and scientific literacy, the START program partners with local universities to provide faculty-mentored, hands-on research experiences. UNC Genetics has multiple faculty who have volunteered to provide research internships for WTCC students.
The program kicked off with a department overview from Dr. Fernando Pardo-Manuel de Villena, followed by research presentations by Drs. Marty Ferris, Laura Raffield and Jason Stein. Drs. Sarah Schoenrock and Sabrina Powell took the students on a tour of the laboratories on GMB 5th floor and outside around the UNC SOM research buildings, ending with a visit to the laboratory of Dr. Jeremy Purvis. A microscopy demonstration was provided for the students by Dr. Sam Wolff and Garrett Sessions (2nd-year grad student). START students participated in a panel discussion with students from the Carolina Student Transfer Excellence Program (C-STEP) and had lunch with current UNC graduate students.
Special thanks to Dr. Kimberly Fishback (Associate Director WTCC START), UNC faculty speakers, the Purvis lab (Dr. Sam Wolff and Garrett Sessions), Cara Marlow, John Cornett, Pam Rosenberg, Dr. Grace Byfield, Dr. Sabrina Powell, Dr. Sarah Schoenrock, and Dr. Chris Gregory for their planning and support of this important partnership effort.