Shaili Regmi '21 and Christine Siebels-Lindquist '21 have been working in the lab of Professor of Biology Tamara Davis since early June, conducting a host of procedures and experiments.
Shaili, who is from Nepal, and Christine each receive a stipend for the work, which is funded by a National Science Foundation grant Davis received for her research on genomic imprinting. Broadly understood, genomic imprinting is the phenomenon by which a subset of genes is expressed solely from one of the two parental alleles—that is, either the copy inherited from the mother or the copy inherited from the father.
Christine, who is a biology major and anthropology minor from Minnesota, reached out to Davis about research opportunities in her lab after taking her Intro to Biology course. "As you're taking courses, professors will talk about their research. Professor Davis does research on genetics and I'm interested in possibly becoming a genetic counselor."
Shaili is a Biochemistry major from Nepal and is considering graduate school after Bryn Mawr. "I'm not sure what exactly I want to do at this point but as someone interested in STEM, the ability to do research as an undergraduate was something I needed in the college I chose."
Students in other labs throughout the Park Science complex are having similar experiences working closely with faculty in a variety of STEM fields. In addition to positions funded through external grants and fellowships, each summer the College provides 35 to 40 students with 10-week research stipends to conduct independent research under the guidance of Bryn Mawr faculty members in the sciences and mathematics.
"When I go to conferences, my peers are blown away by the work that's being done by undergraduates at Bryn Mawr. The science these students are doing is not easy. Shaili and Christine are doing experimental design. That's not typical of students at this level." -- Professor of Biology Tamara Davis.