Welcome to the University of Rochester River Campus
I'm Dr. Michael Welte, chair of the department of biology at the University
of Rochester. Because of the global pandemic you can't
come to us, therefore we decided we will bring us to
you. It was it was a total postcard, I mean
the buildings were brick-faced, you know, there's a quad and all the
students are there. I'm a huge fan of the city. Coming
from Chicago, I was sort of like shocked because it's
a small city, but it's like you took a really good Chicago neighborhood and
turned it into its own city. So it's got a great bar scene,
it's got a good cafe scene. There's a huge coffee community.
It's a very livable city. It's convenient.
You can get around easily. It's affordable, housing is affordable
so you can focus on your work without the
distractions. Here I don't feel that energy
that they are competing with each other.
Every faculty has been amazing with me. I didn't even have my moving van
unloaded and I was like "Mom, we're going to Barnes and Noble.
I want a sweatshirt." Everyone takes pride in this logo.
These people are here to build me up and help me grow as a researcher and
you'll learn that as you have to, as you find yourself needing to come
to them to ask questions. It's like a second home almost because
you're going to be spending so much time in the lab you want to
choose somewhere where you feel like the
atmosphere is welcoming. There's just so much
expertise right here and so it was a
perfect fit and I really liked there was more of a focus on sort of collaboration
and on sort of helping helping each other achieve the things they wanted to
achieve. It was really neat to be able to see
the other projects that are going on. It's nice to have that connection
and crossover into the other side of the department and just
you know, with personal connections to sort of other department members and
other graduate students. It keeps you sort of in the loop and well informed as
to you know, the bigger picture of the
department as a whole. Our department is super small and
friendly. We're like a family. A lot of universities have separate molecular,
cellular biology departments and ecology and
evolutionary departments. We're different in that we're
a biology department, so research in the
department kind of spans a whole large gamut of disciplines,
but I do love that the bio department gives us that opportunity
to rotate with people outside of bio. Just because you leave the bio
department physically by moving to the Med Center, you're not gone.
you're still an active part of this community, even though you're a five
minute walk across the street. The labs are relatively small compared
to many other places. It's not like if you're a graduate
student you're trained by a postdoc and never see the professor. I, for
example, meet with every person in my lab one-on-one once a week
having a supportive environment in general, like from the
grad students and also from the faculty.
I feel it's a major game changer. This kind of organically collaborative
department is something that attracted me to Rochester
and within this first year I've already seen it happening,
even with the social distancing and the remote
virtual interactions with colleagues. U of R is at the forefront in both the
techniques and the equipment, which are difficult to come by at every
university. There's an unusually high concentration
of top caliber labs. So we have a tradition in the department where once a
week post docs, graduate students, and faculty all get
together and we like talk science. And this was my favorite thing about
probably graduate school still because you can talk to different
people. Every like the faculty who show up,
super conversational, super tethered and you know if you have anything that you
want to talk about or if you're jaded from
your research or you're tired of this or confused about this, they're always there
to sort of give you that perspective. They're very helpful. You go to them
if you have a problem so if you encounter an issue
with your research or you need some ideas,
you could always go and like consult them.
What is great about department for graduate students is that they are the
driving force. Someone who can span fieldwork and
computational and molecular work in one person and I think that's the
kind of training that these students are getting here and I'm really envious.
I wish I had that when I was a grad student
because it's just like, this is a revolution that they're really
in. It's amazing for folks that know know my field that carries weight.
There's a great history of fantastic research in the university.
Many folks who have added that history
are still here as faculty and it means a lot to to be doing research
in this institution, in this department in
particular. I chose U of R first and foremost because
it felt like a place where I could both be a scientist that I wanted to be,
but also be a human being. I'm so grateful
I chose the department of biology here. We can't wait to meet everyone in person.