Summer opportunities provide high school students and undergraduates a chance to work with SRP
2024 FRESH Outcomes cohort with Dr. Rebecca Fry and Hadley Hartwell, MS. (Photo courtesy of Hadley Hartwell)
Over the summer, UNC SRP supported several programs that engaged high school and undergraduate students in research, with principal Investigators from across UNC SRP hosting and mentoring students in their labs. These programs included the Equity and Environmental Justice Undergraduate Scholar Training (QUEST) and the 21st Century Environmental Health Scholars (21EH Scholars), both undergraduate internship programs, and the Future Researchers for Environmental Health (FRESH) Outcomes internship for high school students.
QUEST leaders, mentors, and mentees following the 2024 summer poster celebration. (Photo courtesy of Celeste Carberry)
The QUEST and FRESH Outcomes programs were run through UNC SRP Director Rebecca Fry’s lab, with Dr. Lauren Eaves as the Training Division Lead of QUEST and Hadley Hartwell, MS, as the lead for FRESH. In both programs, students learned wet lab and data science skills, networked with environmental health professionals, and attended a wide range of lectures. In the QUEST program, students spent the summer engaged in research with an equity or environmental justice lens. UNC SRP labs, including the labs of Dr. Rager (DMAC), Dr. Jaspers (RETCC), and Dr. Fry (Projects 1 and 2), hosted students, who were mentored by SRP trainees in their assigned labs. Nosa Avenbaum and Kristina Stuckey were graduate student leads for the QUEST program. QUEST students also had the opportunity to mentor the FRESH Outcomes high school students in writing short research papers. Both FRESH and QUEST students had opportunities to learn from SRP trainees about Superfund sites, the health effects of toxic metals, and epigenetics.
“This was one of the best experiences of college for me because it truly allowed me to learn a myriad of different research skills for wet-bench and dry-bench research,” said one QUEST participant. “I was able to use these research techniques to investigate problems and solutions facing communities in North Carolina and across the world.”
21EH Student, Jack Boss, presents on his summer research project looking at private well data. (Photo courtesy of Kathleen Gray)
The 21EH Scholars program—co-led by UNC SRP’s Dr. Kathleen Gray (CEC) and Dr. Ilona Jaspers (RETCC) and Dr. Tony Baines of North Carolina Central University (NCCU)—engages undergraduate students from UNC-Chapel Hill and NCCU in environmental health research experiences during the summer and the academic year. In summer 2024, 21EH Scholars conducted mentored research in labs in the UNC School of Medicine and the Gillings School of Global Public Health, while also participating in activities designed to foster a sense of belonging in STEM. Drs. Gray and Jaspers mentored Scholars over the summer along with Dr. Andrew George (CEC) and Sarah Yelton, MS (Research Translation). UNC SRP investigators Gray, George, Jaspers, and Yelton all led sessions in which they shared insights from their career journeys and their expertise in effectively communicating emerging science in non-academic settings.
UNC undergraduate student Jackson Boss worked closely with the UNC SRP CEC on his research project, which included data analysis to support well testing in Robeson County, NC.
“I couldn’t be more grateful that I was involved,” said Boss. “Before college, I liked data and numbers, but this experience gave me a sense of how they can help people. Having the opportunity to go into the community and support well testing was the coolest thing about working with the SRP.”
