Faculty presenters at the BBI-sponsored intern event were (top row, left to right:Nana Minkah, assistant professor Center for Global Infectious Disease Research; Ayokunie Olanrewaju, assistant professor of Bioengineering and Mechanical Engineering; and Devin Schweppe, assistant professor, UW Genome Sciences; (bottom row, left to right) Lea Starita, associate professor in the UW Department of Genome Sciences and co-director of the Brotman Baty Advanced Technology Lab; Mariya Sweetwyne, assistant professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology; and Alpana Waghmare, associate professor, UW Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases
More than 30 interns from BBI’s three institutions – UW Medicine, Fred Hutch and Seattle Children’s – engaged with six professors July 2 to explore academic and career trajectories. The event, the annual BBI-sponsored intern luncheon, provides undergraduates the rare opportunity to meet informally for an hour with principal investigators and faculty outside the classroom or lab.
“This is one of my favorite on-campus events of the year,” said Dr. Lea Starita, associate professor in the UW Department of Genome Sciences and co-director of the Brotman Baty Advanced Technology Lab. “It’s enlightening for the students to learn how professors have navigated their career journeys and fun for my colleagues and I to share stories of success and failure in our professional lives. We learn insights from each other and, of course, we laugh a lot.”
Starita facilitated the discussion in a UW South Campus Center classroom with:
- Nana Minkah, assistant professor Center for Global Infectious Disease Research
- Ayokunie Olanrewaju, assistant professor of Bioengineering and Mechanical Engineering
- Devin Schweppe, assistant professor, UW Genome Sciences
- Mariya Sweetwyne, assistant professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology
- Alpana Waghmare, associate professor, UW Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases
Sweetwyne believes the students were especially appreciative of her personal reflections.
Dr. Sweetwyne empasizes a point about her career to the interns.
“Anyone participating in summer research programs has already demonstrated a strong interest in biomedical research,” she said. “What is harder to anticipate are the challenges to maintaining your individuality during that training process. I hope that telling my personal story will contribute to some future colleagues being able to see their own way forward into successful careers.”
Following the faculty members’ presentations and a question and answer session, the participants met for a second hour over lunch and continued discussions.
“At lunch, every trainee I talked to had really unique and interesting reasons for why they were drawn to research,” Sweetwyne said. “I also saw so many positive interactions among the interns, which made me feel great about the future of medicine and biomedical research as a diverse, collaborative, and supportive endeavor.”
