WOMEN IN PLANT BIOLOGY

Mentoring Undergraduate Research
by Caryl A. Chlan
Associate Professor, University of Louisiana at Lafayette; cchlan@louisiana.edu

When I decided to major in microbiology as an undergraduate, I was still uncertain about the type of career I wanted to pursue. Like many other undergraduates in the life sciences, I seriously considered medical school. However, after having the opportunity to participate in laboratory research, I knew that I wanted to be a scientist. After graduation, I went to work as a technician in a commercial lab, but running the same assays every day wasn’t what I wanted, so the following year I returned to school to pursue a master’s in microbiology. After I completed the master’s, I worked for several years as a technician in a university research laboratory. It was there that I discovered how much I enjoyed the freedom and challenges of pure research. I went back to school again for a doctorate in biochemistry, and after a couple of postdocs I was hired as an assistant professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Looking back, I realize how important that first undergraduate research experience was for me.

My first class teaching assignment as a new assistant professor was an undergraduate nonmajors class of more than 350 students. Although dealing with this number of students was at first overwhelming, it ultimately helped me appreciate their diverse backgrounds. There were many whose parents did not attend college, some whose parents did not finish high school, and even some whose parents had never learned to read or write. For most of these students, just attending a university was a bold step, and so the idea of becoming involved in independent research was an unlikely prospect. However, after I told the class a little about my own research in plant molecular biology, two students approached me and asked if they could see what I did in my laboratory. Shortly thereafter, they were working on their own projects, and although they were not science majors, they came back every semester to work on these projects until they graduated. Their enthusiasm, dedication, and sense of wonder were a constant reminder to me and my graduate students of why we were attracted to science.

Since then, I have had many undergraduates who were not science majors in my lab, and it is always a rewarding experience. Although none of these students changed majors, they learned to understand and appreciate the actual practice of science, as distinct from the distillation of its findings into a textbook. Of course, I hope that their time in the lab will help them think more critically about the world around them and understand the value of science to society. But I have to admit that I am most gratified to see them leave with a new appreciation for plants.

My experiences with undergraduate life science majors have been no less rewarding. Some of these students work in the lab for a semester or two and then move on to medical research or a professional school. Although they have chosen a different career path than mine, I feel that the time invested in their student projects has been well spent. The principles they learn from studying how plants resist fungal pathogens or why seed storage proteins have diversified are important in medicine as well as in plant science. Furthermore, by first encountering these principles outside of the context of medicine, they develop an appreciation for the value of basic research. Of course, many of the most rewarding students are those who develop a true love for plant biology and go on to pursue an advanced degree. It is so exciting to watch these young scientists develop and mature!

The most talented, and lucky, manage to produce publishable results, but even those who don’t can learn the satisfaction that comes from hard and careful work—and all of them have enriched my research program.

In short, undergraduate students with diverse backgrounds and career goals all can benefit from research experience. Even if these students don’t follow a career in science, they often find the experience enlightening and rewarding, and it is clearly to everyone’s benefit if they come away with a deeper appreciation of how science works. Mentoring diverse students has its own special rewards; it has given me a broader perspective on how people perceive science and what someone else might find interesting about what scientists do. Seeing a student take ownership of a research problem and become doggedly determined to solve it can also be a wonderful reminder of how I got hooked myself.