Outreach
Community College Outreach
As part of our commitment to expanding access to scientific research, we welcomed students from the Wake Tech START Program to Purvis Lab on October 25th, 2024. The students had the chance to explore our lab through faculty-mentored, hands-on research experiences. The visit concluded with a tour of the lab and a microscopy demonstration by Dr. Sam Wolff and Dr. Tim Daugird. Thank you to our lab members and faculty who made this inspiring visit possible!
K-12 Outreach
To broaden the scientific impact of our research, we have partnered and continue to partner with local organizations to educate and train the next generation of computational biologists.
From 2017 to 2020, we partnered with Central Park School for Children, a public school in Durham, NC with a longstanding commitment to enrolling a student body that mirrors the demographics of Durham neighborhoods. We hosted two field trips for Durham third grade students in our laboratory, teaching them basic concepts of cell biology and engaging them in laboratory activities such as cell culture, microscopy, and image analysis.The long-term goal was to include these students as co-authors in any resulting publications in which they played an active role in data annotation.
From 2019-2023, we partnered with UNC’s TEACCH Autism Program, a world-class center for Autism research, clinical services, and consultation for parents, care providers, and employers. Lab members worked closely with TEACCH to employ and train young adults to carry out the vital image analysis tasks needed to quantify live- and fixed-cell data. We are building on this effort by recruiting undergraduate students to serve as job coaches for our new lab members. This initiative allowed us to scale up our image analysis throughput; equip the employees and students with important life and employment skills; and encourage other laboratories to incorporate similar efforts into their research programs.
Since 2022, we have collaborated with Durham School of the Arts (DSA) to teach microscopy to seventh-grade science students. DSA is a public magnet school reaching nearly 2,000 students in the Durham area. Thanks to a generous donation of a microscope from Thermo Fisher Scientific, we collaborated with teacher Chris Huggins in preparing lecture material, assisting in demonstrations, running question and answer segments, and providing general microscopy instruction. We visit DSA between three and four times a year to assist Huggins in teaching the microscopy unit. With a classroom of around twenty-five students each, our assistance with the hands-on microscopy lessons allowed more students to experience using the instrument accurately. Being in the classroom also provides students access to our lab personnel for further questions about the subject and potential career pathways.
