UI program offers research, mentoring for undergraduates

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IOWA CITY — Jennifer Claudio, a college senior, spends her summer days in the University of Iowa’s Roland and Ruby Holden Cancer Research Laboratories.

Claudio, 21, of Puerto Rico, conducts research on optimizing a B cell vaccine for immunotherapy, working with a UI distinguished professor of microbiology.

Not bad for a student who this fall will be a senior studying chemistry at Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. Claudio hopes to complete graduate studies and eventually become a doctorate researcher.

“I’m in the lab every day doing my experiments and reading papers and learning as much as I can,” she said. “I think the research completely meets my needs in order to reach my goals.”

Claudio is one of 45 minority students from other colleges and universities participating in the eight-week Summer Research Opportunities Program, part of the UI’s McNair Scholars Program. The federally funded McNair Program provides talented undergraduate students from disadvantaged backgrounds the chance to pursue research projects at large universities. The UI’s summer program is eight weeks of in-depth research. The visiting students also get tips on applying to and being successful in graduate school.

Claudio said of all the universities with McNair summer programs, she specifically wanted to come to the UI.

“The mentors were great, the researchers were extremely well known,” she said.
Chasity Bell, 21, feels her confidence growing each day in the summer program. Bell, a senior in psychology at Louisiana College in Pineville, La., is conducting observational research of children with Asperger’s and autism.

“I like all the information I’ve learned, the knowledge

I’ve obtained that I can use in the future,” she said. “I’m now confident I will get accepted into a graduate program.” Working with experienced research professors can be intimidating, Bell said, but it “makes you want to step up your game.” Eleven of the students in the program, including Bell, also were at the UI last summer. But they were evacuated and their program was halted only one week because of the June 2008 flood, which devastated parts of campus.

Bell and Pauline Dixon, 21, from San Diego, are glad they returned this summer. The two remember being evacuated from Burge Residence Hall last summer during the flood, getting 30 minutes to pack their things.

“You could tell by their demeanor it was a big deal,” said Dixon, a senior studying mass communication and theater arts at California State University Dominguez Hills. “It was a wonderful experience, even in that one week, so I was very excited to come back and gain a little bit more knowledge.”