SURF 2020 Update
While the COVID-19 pandemic derailed our traditional summer SURF program, the staff at RI-INBRE worked to ensure that students would be given the opportunity to participate in research, especially given the restrictions on such opportunities throughout the state. As a result, investigators and students were given the option to either participate in an academic year research program or to defer their participation to the summer of 2021, based on the institutional research requirements for undergraduate students and student needs.
Out of the 35 students originally selected to do research at URI or Brown, 21 elected to participate in the academic year program and 7 will be deferring to 2021. Our SURF mentors at URI and Brown adapted their research to mentor our cohorts from September 2020 to April 2021 for the academic year program. In addition, three of our PUI investigators that conducted their SURF training over the summer include: Fr. Nicanor Austriaco (Providence College), Dr. Christopher Reid (Bryant University), and Geoff Stilwell (R.I. College).
During the Fall SURF Program, several one-hour professional development workshops for participating SURF students were hosted by experts in their fields and included: Introduction to Research, What to Expect Out of Research, Expectations and How Summer Research Can Help You Achieve Your Goals, Suggestions and Tactics for Creating Resumes and Using LinkedIn, Tips and Strategies for Applying to Graduate School, Technical Writing and Authorship, Science Careers and Beyond, Science for the People: Radically Rebranding Science Communication, and How to Make a Research Poster and Write a Research Abstract.
While this year’s SURF program did not look like those in the past, the participating students and investigators have expressed their enthusiasm to being able to continue to conduct research during such challenging times.