Rabi Scholars present their research at an annual symposium each fall.
Samuel Zeng ’15 is hunting for a cure for Type I diabetes, a chronic autoimmune disease that affects millions. Working in two labs — that of P&S professor Megan Sykes during the school year and another at Harvard during the summer — he conducted research that led to an article under consideration at the journal Nature Biotechnology and that was presented at a major medical conference.
Zeng, a fellow in the College’s I.I. Rabi Scholars Program, is one of dozens of students who receive support through the College to do science research each year. Selected for the program by faculty during the admissions process because of their exceptional promise in the sciences, fellows receive funding for three summers and are given opportunities to work closely with great scientists in some of the best labs in the world, to contribute to trailblazing research and to learn innovative techniques that might not have been covered by their coursework.
“Regardless of which aspect of biology, there are always gray areas seeking clarification,” Zeng says. “For me to play a part in elucidating these mysteries is truly gratifying. But even short of contributing to significant discoveries, the lab remains exciting.”
Samuel Zeng ’15
The Rabi Scholars Program, which has supported more than 200 College science students since it was founded in 1989 (including 31 current students), is one of the many ways the College helps to create the next generation of great scientists. But the College is now connecting students with more opportunities to do cutting-edge science research than ever before, providing financial support and faculty mentoring through a variety of programs to ensure that budding scientists have the tools, skills and resources they need.
In 2010, the College introduced a Science Research Fellows Program, which gives students a base amount of funding for their entire undergraduate career and connects them to one another and to faculty through a special first-year science research seminar. Like Rabi Scholars, Science Research Fellows are nominated to the program during the admissions process because their applications demonstrate that they have the capacity to make an impact on the science community at Columbia. Since the program was founded, it has provided support to 46 students, the first of whom will graduate in May 2014.
Students can also apply to do hands-on, biology-related research through the Department of Biological Science’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program as well as through the Amgen Scholarship, a national program that provides funding for students from top universities to do project-based research with faculty during their summer breaks.
In fall 2012, the College hired an adviser for science research who supports students in the Science Research Fellows program and serves as a resource for anyone in the College interested in doing science research, and during summer 2013, the University hired an associate dean for student research at the Medical Center, who also supports undergraduates in their research projects.
“We are extraordinarily lucky, here at Columbia, to be surrounded by some of the world’s best scientists who are also deeply committed to undergraduate education,” says Kathryn Yatrakis, dean of academic affairs. “As a result, College students can gain laboratory and other science research experience throughout the academic year and during the summer. This research is vital in forming the next generation of scientists, but also provides students with a range of skills transferable to all professions, including data collection and analysis, problem solving and hypothesis testing to name but a few.”
“These experiences in labs were very important lessons, ones that no class could have taught me.” — Sweta Agrawal ’09
Sweta Agrawal ’09, a neurobiology major who received an Amgen Scholarship in summer 2007, says getting hands-on lab experience and having consultations with faculty helped her to realize the nuances in the types of scientific research and therefore to discover her passion. She is now a fourth-year Ph.D. student in neurobiology and behavior at the University of Washington.
“At first, I thought I might be a bad scientist who didn’t have the patience for the day-to-day minutiae that research often involves,” she says. “These experiences in labs were very important lessons, ones that no class could have taught me. They helped me become a more mature scientist.”
In fact, such research experiences are crucial for a career in the sciences, notes Professor Marina Cords, chair of the Committee on Science Instruction. Working closely with great scientists in some of the best labs in the world helps prepare College students for graduate school in the sciences and likely contributes to Columbia’s 91 percent admit rate for undergraduates to M.D./Ph.D. programs in the past three years.
“A lot of students who get involved in research early get invested in the question the research is addressing, and their discoveries provide a sense of legitimacy to the work they do,” Cords says.
Darpan Patel ’14, a biology major and Rabi Scholar who intended to pursue law, says conducting cancer research with biology Professor Brent Stockwell shifted his career aspirations. After three years in the lab, he now plans to pursue a Ph.D. and M.D.
“The intellectual curiosity that carried me to Columbia will let me continue to tackle issues at the boundaries between science and medicine,” Patel says. “Research has been as much a defining part of my College experience as the classes I have taken and the friends I have made. It has been a continued source of personal growth, joy in discovery and wonder at the underlying elegance of life’s extraordinary complexities.”
— Ethan Rouen ’04J, ’11 BU