“That first summer with SURF gave me the opportunity to see what doing research was really like. Eight hours a day, five days a week. It almost felt like I wasn’t doing research before that point.”

Megan Sylvia
Senior; biology
Salve Regina University
SURF student; 2014, 2015

Megan Sylvia, who will graduate from Salve Regina University in a few weeks with her bachelor’s in biology, just accepted a fellowship at Penn State, where she will pursue a Ph.D. in biology.

The Westerly (RI) High School alum credits the momentous next step to her undergraduate experience at Salve, where she landed serendipitously in the lab of Associate Professor J.D. Swanson, a Rhode Island EPSCoR researcher and mentor in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program.

“I took general biology with a lab and general chemistry with a lab, and completely fell in love and stayed with bio,” Sylvia recalls. “I was recommended to take a biotechnology class and Dr. Swanson was one of the teachers.

“Basically, it was a lab class — four hours of lab every week, 10 to 15 kids. That got me thinking about research.”

At the same time, she says, Swanson was recruiting underclassmen to join his lab. Sylvia started her sophomore year. During the spring semester, Swanson told his students about research opportunities available during the summer, including the 10-week RI EPSCoR SURF program.

The chance to conduct research full time without the weight of academics proved to be pivotal.

“During the school year, you don’t have much time to get stuff done,” Sylvia says. “That first summer with SURF gave me the opportunity to see what doing research was really like. Eight hours a day, five days a week. It almost felt like I wasn’t doing research before that point.”

The following summer, Sylvia earned another slot in the SURF program with Swanson, working with the confidence and skills she gained the summer before.

“I got so much done because I already knew what to expect and already had ideas about what I was going to be doing,” she says. “Even during the school year, I was able to get so much more work done. I understood it so much better and my skills were more refined.”

Sylvia says the SURF program also gave her the chance to work at her science as if it were a job: “You have to be able to focus for eight hours and task yourself, set daily goals and implement time management and communication skills.”

The research reaped dividends in applying to graduate school, she adds, giving her an edge with her three years of lab experience.

Sylvia also credits Swanson for his mentorship, encouraging students to pursue their interests and providing opportunities to explore without him standing over their shoulder and critiquing everything they do. She says he lets them make and remedy their mistakes.

“And, actually, I wasn’t going to apply to grad school,” she concedes. “I was super disappointed with my scores on the GRE, but I didn’t have the time or money to retake the test. But, Dr. Swanson convinced me that my research experience and my grades would outweigh my scores. I listened to him and ended up with a choice of where I went to grad school.”

At the moment, Sylvia says she may want to teach in higher education, at a smaller university like Salve. But, she adds, after five or six years in graduate school, she could change her mind.

Regardless of where she goes, scientific research has made a lasting impact. Sylvia says she has been exposed to research for so long, the way of reasoning has altered her thought process.

“I find myself using the scientific method without realizing it,” she laughs. “I’ll look at a situation, even the most random thing, and wonder why. I’ll literally think of hypotheses, go through, and test each one. That’s my thought process now. It’s how I think.”

Story by Amy Dunkle | RI NSF EPSCoR