In this essay, Mingda Sun, a high school student from Connecticut, recounts her summer research internship opportunity at the Center for Quantitative Medicine of UConn Health. She discusses her learning experiences, the challenges she faced, and the encouragement she received from her mentors and peers and explains how this month-long internship helped her overcome her fears of the unknown, as the project was related to concepts that were new to her, like mathematical biology and computer science. Being part of a research team and committing herself to exploring new opportunities reaffirmed Sun’s career aspirations in science research in a STEM field. Her reflection offers helpful insights for students, educators, and researchers who are realizing the benefits that lab-based internship opportunities offer to both high school students and their instructors.
Click here to access this article.
Mingda Sun is a sixteen-year-old student who lives in Connecticut. She is currently a junior at Farmington High School. She is passionate about science, biology, and human health, and aspires to pursue a career path related to medicine or research in her future. Some of her other hobbies include baking, running, and organizing community service events. She recently made an oral presentation of her research from this summer internship at the Connecticut Junior Science and Humanities Symposium.
Sherli Koshy-Chenthittayil (
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1054-455X) is a postdoctoral scholar with UConn Health. Her area of expertise is mathematical biology, where she utilizes mathematical models to answer biology and health related questions like how to regulate certain bacterial species to prevent them from converting to harmful modes. Koshy-Chenthittayil is also passionate about advocating for Student with Disabilities (SWD) in Science and uses her expertise to examine issues around SWD like access to STEM higher education. As a teacher in both higher education and K–12, she has designed group projects as well as mathematics trivia games to increase inquiry and class participation.
Nikeetha Farfan D’Souza is a postdoctoral fellow in the Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion at Indiana University Bloomington. Her work revolves around researching and developing inclusive learning spaces for underrepresented and/or marginalized students, especially in STEM fields.