Summer

Summer research lies at the heart of the BioGAP program. From mid-June to mid-August, BioGAP scholars spend much of every day in the laboratory, working side-by-side with UC Davis faculty, postdocs and graduate students in original research in laboratory or field settings, depending on the discipline. This immersion in an original research question helps scholars gain new skills and concomitantly increases their intellectual independence.

Figure showing use of R — Figure 3 from Calfee et al. 2020 created using R. Erin Calfee has helped teach the R workshop to UC Davis summer undergrad researchers.. See https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.17.994632 for complete information.

“Working in a lab for two years previously I thought that I knew a good bit for an undergraduate. But working in this lab I realized that although I may know how to conduct a few experiments, I never knew how they worked or why we did them at my previous lab. But here I knew why we were doing everything that we did, and that helped me realize the difference between just going through the steps and being a true scientist… I feel more like a scientist after this program.”

Scholars from BioGAP, UC Davis’ HBCU STEM initiatives — PABGAP and NUTGAP, and the EERREC REU will participate in weekly sessions in professional development that focus on preparing applications for graduate study and career development. As part of this program, scholars will write drafts of statements of purpose and personal histories for graduate applications, and interact with current UC Davis graduate students and faculty in panel discussions. Scholars also may take an optional workshop in R scripting to learn skills that include data frame manipulation, writing functions, installing and using R packages, creating plots, and interpreting R-help pages.

BioGAP scholars also will have the option to visit research facilities at UC Davis and in the adjoining region on tours led by program directors Sean Burgess and other UC Davis faculty. These sites include the UC Davis Genome Center, Bodega Marine Laboratory, and Bayer Crop Sciences. Thus, students will be exposed to options for advanced study beyond what they experience in their mentor’s laboratory.

Summer research symposium — Summer research scholars from HBCUs and CSU campuses gave remote research presentations in Summer 2020.

Summer will close with a mini research symposium in which BioGAP, PABGAP, NUTGAP, and EERREC scholars present their work to their peers and UC Davis faculty and graduate students. In 2017, UC Davis Chancellor Gary May stopped by to hear talks and meet the student researchers.

Rising seniors may participate in an optional weekly workshop that occurs after the end of the program, mid-August through mid October, to write proposals for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

Last, but not least, mentors will remain in contact with summer scholars during their senior year to guide preparation of applications for graduate programs and co-advise honors theses and preparation of research publications.