Undergraduate Research: Encouraging Scientific Curiosity

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00:00:10.19 Graham Hatful: Encouraging Scientific Curiosity Through Undergraduate Research
00:00:14.08 Hello, my name is Graham Hatful, I'm a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor.
00:00:23.07 Over a number of years in which I have been privileged to be a research scientist,
00:00:30.15 I've had a number of conversations with colleagues
00:00:32.16 as to what it takes to be a successful research scientist in the life sciences.
00:00:38.25 And the one thing that I've heard over and over again, is that there really is just one single attribute, which is really critical.
00:00:48.29 It has nothing to do with how excellently you performed academically, in the classroom
00:00:57.18 what your scores looks like on standardized tests, a particular learning style or the way you think
00:01:03.21 or even the technically prowess that you may have in working at the lab at the bench.
00:01:10.22 All of those things may help, and may be useful, but the one thing that I think
00:01:18.14 that you really absolutely have to have is curiosity.
00:01:22.21 You have to be interested in asking questions about the things that you don't know and that we collectively don't know
00:01:31.17 about science. And you have to be willing and interested to go out and try to seek the answers to those questions.
00:01:42.15 So many other attributes may contribute, but if you don't have curiosity,
00:01:47.26 I think it's really hard to engage in a productive and active way in doing and contributing to science.
00:01:57.03 The problem however, is that while curiosity is really a critical facility to have, not everybody who is curious
00:02:09.00 gets the opportunity to engage in scientific research or even to explore as to whether doing science
00:02:17.25 and discovering new things is something that they are well suited to.
00:02:23.13 And so I just wanted to talk for a few minutes about providing opportunities and
00:02:29.15 taking advantage of opportunities to engage in scientific research.
00:02:33.22 For myself, my experiences were rooted in the opportunities that I was fortunate enough
00:02:40.11 to have as an undergraduate student at Westfield College at the University of London.
00:02:46.06 Westfield College was a small college with relatively few research-active faculty.
00:02:52.20 I went to study biological sciences, and I was sort of quite interested in the idea of scientific research
00:03:02.10 but it seemed as though this was an enterprise that was way beyond my capabilities,
00:03:07.26 as a rather average student, academically speaking, and I had seen pictures and reports
00:03:18.03 in the media and in newspapers of the brilliant scientists and the incredibly mind-bogging discoveries that they had made
00:03:27.22 and that were reported, and I was fairly sure that I was unlikely to be able to do
00:03:34.13 the kind of work that these people were doing, but most importantly, I was provided an opportunity to try it out,
00:03:44.26 to give it a go. Specifically, there was a faculty member
00:03:50.15 at Westfield College named Dr. Peter Fay, who investigated the mechanisms
00:03:55.02 by which heterocysts, a specialized kind of cell that you find in blue-green algae, how it fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere.
00:04:04.19 And I had an opportunity to go and rather sheepishly talk to Dr. Fay,
00:04:10.05 who then gave me this project to do electron microscopy to explore the ultrastructural changes
00:04:16.26 that are associated with how heterocysts differentiate from vegetative cells.
00:04:22.23 So I was able to do this and to seize this opportunity
00:04:26.21 as an undergraduate researcher and to spend time during the academic year,
00:04:34.16 but also during the whole of my summers, and two summers I spent at Westfield College
00:04:40.13 doing this research project. I confess, I was supported on a rather small amount of money from the state,
00:04:47.08 and I consumed rather a large number of cheese sandwiches on a regular basis, which fortunately I rather quite liked,
00:04:54.04 but I was able to spend this dedicated time finding out whether doing scientific research
00:05:00.20 was something that I could do, an enterprise I could contribute to
00:05:05.11 and it turned out to be a very important opportunity that was given to me and that I was able to hopefully take advantage of.
00:05:15.07 It certainly facilitated the next opportunity that was presented to me,
00:05:19.15 which was to go to graduate school to study for a Ph.D., which I did starting with Dr. Willy Donikee at the University of Edinburgh.
00:05:27.06 And I think I really got that position as a Ph.D. student largely predicated upon
00:05:32.03 the work that I had done as an undergraduate researcher at Westfield College.
00:05:36.12 The third key opportunity for me was in being able to come to the States
00:05:40.23 to work with Nigel Grindley at Yale University. And again, I think the early opportunities that I had
00:05:48.27 to try doing research as an undergraduate really opened up those doors, not only for the Ph.D.,
00:05:54.22 but for the post-doctoral research, and even faculty position beyond that.
00:05:59.22 These opportunities that have benefited me enormously, had I think considerable influence on my thinking about what I can do
00:06:14.15 and what I can contribute, what opportunities I can offer as a scientific researcher.
00:06:20.06 About 10 years ago, we developed a program at the University of Pittsburgh
00:06:27.12 called the Phage Hunters Integrating Research and Education program,
00:06:31.08 in which we have developed bacteriophage discovery and genomics
00:06:37.14 as a platform whereby novice scientists, undergraduates, high school students, really anybody who is curious
00:06:45.16 but doesn't have any prior experience of doing research, to be able to come into the lab
00:06:51.13 to do some science, to isolate and discover new viruses, to sequence their genomes,
00:06:58.19 and understand about the processes of viral diversity and evolutionary mechanisms,
00:07:05.05 through their own personal experiences.
00:07:07.20 I think that what's really very satisfying to me about this process is that we've really by luck stumbled upon this platform
00:07:19.02 in which students from all backgrounds, irrespective of their other credentials
00:07:26.11 can enter into the scientific process, and their activities can be fueled by features of project ownership
00:07:37.06 essentially a sense of identity with the new viruses of their discovering
00:07:43.06 scientific discovery is, in of itself, extremely enticing, and a motivating activity.
00:07:50.12 By developing a program, which enables students to start with very tangible beginnings, and then to progress from these more
00:08:00.20 concrete types of starts, through greater technical complexity, and indeed through
00:08:09.06 much more abstract forms of thinking, ride the way through
00:08:13.01 to understanding and interpreting the abstract concepts of numbers and letters coming out of a computer
00:08:21.19 and making scientific sense of that information. This transition provides a platform for people and students
00:08:28.23 who are curious and want to find out whether this is an enterprise that they can contribute to works really well,
00:08:35.09 and I'm really delighted that this sense of providing opportunities now has been expanded
00:08:39.19 through the science educational alliance at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
00:08:43.19 to a large number of schools and universities across the United States
00:08:48.11 where freshman students can now begin to tap into these opportunities to find out whether research is for them,
00:08:55.25 whether they have an aptitude for it, whether they enjoy doing it,
00:09:01.29 and whether this can be for them also a gateway to further engagement as creative and innovative research scientists.
00:09:11.02 I think it's very important for us as scientists to provide these so that we can have a flourishing
00:09:17.27 and diverse and very productive next generation of research scientists.
00:09:23.27 I think that the possibilities for research scientists, faculty members, investigators,
00:09:31.28 at various institutions of higher education, to provide these opportunities, is largely undertapped.
00:09:38.11 It's quite common for faculty members to have undergraduate students for example,
00:09:45.04 come and do individual projects in their labs, perhaps supervised by a graduate student or a post-doc,
00:09:51.22 activities that invariable are very supportive for the students, and they provide real opportunities.
00:10:01.09 The problem is there is a large number of students who don't really know what doing science is.
00:10:07.26 They have no way of really knowing what's involved to do research science
00:10:12.26 and they have no way of knowing whether they can do it.
00:10:15.22 And so I think there is a wealth of possibilities that research scientists can and should explore
00:10:23.23 in order to find ways to have students engaged in research in their lab.
00:10:30.17 A lot depends, I think, on finding the right kind of project. A project where you can engage
00:10:37.14 a reasonable number of students, where you can have peer-mentorship so they can teach each other,
00:10:42.19 and where students can engage in authentic scientific research with hopefully publishable data
00:10:52.24 as a way of gaining experience no matter what the topic is or where the faculty member is conducting that research.
00:11:02.24 So I hope you have enjoyed this iBioMagazine segment. I strongly encourage you if you are a student
00:11:10.13 to go out there and take advantage of the opportunities that are presented to you
00:11:16.07 if you're curious, and have an interest in engaging in scientific research.
00:11:21.04 If you are an investigator, or a faculty member, I would implore you to find ways to present those opportunities
00:11:28.09 so that you can help to fuel the next generation of research scientists here and around the world. Thank you.

This Talk

Speaker: Graham Hatfull

Audience:

Educators of H. School / Intro Undergrad
Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
Researcher
Educators

Recorded: October 2010

Talk Overview

The opportunity to engage in research as an undergraduate student was pivotal in Hatfull’s decision to pursue a career in science. This experience convinced Hatfull and his colleagues to set up a program that allows undergraduates and high school students to participate in isolating bacteriophage. Hatfull makes a case for allowing all curious students to engage in authentic research. He encourages scientists to support undergraduate research by giving students opportunities to work in their labs.

Speaker Bio

Graham Hatfull

Graham Hatfull is Professor of Biotechnology and Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. He received his PhD from Edinburgh University and was a post-doctoral fellow with Nigel Grindley at Yale University and Fred Sanger at the MRC. His lab focuses on studying… Continue Reading