The College of Science and Mathematics at California State University, Fresno is focused
on providing a quality education to graduates. One of the most important tools in this effort
is developing students' opportunities for undergraduate research.
The College of Science and Mathematics is a research intensive college, over the last
5 to 6 years we've hired 45 new faculty. Every one of these faculty hires has a contractual
obligation to establish a productive research laboratory involving our students. The faculty
firmly believe that research and education go hand-in-hand, it's the only way we can
fire-up our students to make them active learners. We could spoon-feed them information and they
could come out at the other end with a lot of knowledge, but they've never really been
turned on to what science means and this is our way of making sure that our students are
innovative thinkers and are ready for the challenge of this technology rich workforce.
In this highly competitive era of science and technology advancement undergraduate research
offers benefits that extend far beyond the accomplishments in the lab.
As the advisor of the Chemistry Club I often tell the students they need to get involved
in research and there's a lot of different benefits for doing that. First of all you
get one-on-one interaction with a faculty member. That means they get to evaluate your
skills and your lab skills, your communication skills, and that's very important when you
need a letter of recommendation to go to another graduate program or professional school or
even to get a job. The second thing is that your building networks and interacting with
other students in the lab and so that helps, but also the sense of confidence building
that you get because you're doing something new and unique and you're having to figure
it out on your own, but also it reinforces all the concepts you learned in class in an
applied manner and I think that's what really makes a difference for most students to help
reinvigorate them to help them understand how much they really enjoy science and love
it.
Working here in the laboratory has really solidified the information presented to me
in a classroom setting. Before working in the lab, in my studies I would have to read
the book from front to back and I really couldn't visualize what I was I was learning, because
I'm a visual learner as I'm sure many other students are. So once I started working in
the lab I saw that my grades were really being affected, for example, Biology 1B is a class
that takes a lot of time and a lot of studying time and I was just doing so great because
I knew all the techniques, I knew all the concepts because I'd actually done them here
in the lab. I'd worked with cells, I'd seen cells in the microscope. I had transformed
cells to make them transgenic. So concepts that were once so, I could say, complex to
me became very simple in my mind.
My research has been in inorganic chemistry and that started well before I had to take
the upper-division chemistry classes and when I got into those they started talking about
techniques and instrumentation and various tools that were used by chemists in research
and it was all about the theory and I think that having used those before in undergraduate
research, it made it that much easier to understand and to be able to talk about them and I really
noticed a difference when I was in the classes learning about them that it was that much
easier.
I have a few students, first they learn some from their classes, indeed they are a little
bit under performance and after they join the lab they start seeing how the real physics
can apply in the real world. They get really motivated and get really interested. So that
overall improved their academic work.
Students involved in undergraduate research are also exposed to and integral participants
in a diverse set of cutting-edge research projects and activities.
The research projects that we are interested in here in my laboratory are two fold. One
is to try to address the problem of plant parasitic nematodes which is a very, very
serious problem in the central valley, but also across the world. What we're trying to
do here is trying to develop tools to solve this particular problem. Likewise, another
problem that we are trying to solve is problems associated with water, water quality and also
waste water. As you all know, water is an essential element for life and here in the
central valley it is also very essential, we're trying to use algae to produce bio fuels
and at the same time clean-up waste water.
The research that I do in my lab relates to bio and organic chemistry. We're really interested
in understanding how metals in the body react with certain proteins and amino acids in a
particular cystine. And cystine is a common additive in vitamins. It's often given by
doctors to treat oxidative damage and things like that, so we really want to understand
how certain metals bind certain amino acids and proteins in the body and what can happen
when you introduce the wrong metal, something that may be toxic.
It is a lot of work, you have to be committed, but taking that extra step and joining and
being a part of something bigger really sets you apart from the thousands of other students
that come here at Fresno State. And if you are pursuing a graduate career, if you are
pursuing a career in medicine or in dentistry or any career in the health sciences you're
going to stand out from everyone else because you have shown your character, you have shown
your commitment and your dedication.
I would tell any student that is interested or has the interest in research to per sue
it. Don't ever be afraid of not having the knowledge base or not knowing how to do something.
That's what the laboratory is for, that's where you come to learn. You learn your concepts
in the classroom, but you apply them in the lab and that's where it's important for you
to get that hands-on experience.
Students who are heading off to be career scientists by doing the undergraduate degree
in science and then higher degree, either the masters level or the Ph.D. level really
have to try out undergraduate research. An undergraduate research experience is also
vital for turning those students on to careers in science. They can see the value of the
kinds of research that is needed out there because we have scientists in the lab doing
cutting-edge research and those students are learning skill sets that you could never learn
in the classroom and we hope that they are going to become the future leaders in the
scientific areas that we urgently need.