2014 Gerstner Sloan Kettering Summer Undergraduate Research Program Students
The 2014 Gerstner Sloan Kettering Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP), which will run from June 2 to August 8, includes 24 students from 21 different institutions. The students are assigned to GSK faculty mentors and will work in Sloan Kettering Institute labs learning from their mentor, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students. Cell biologist Michael Overholtzer will serve as the SURP Faculty Director.
The 2014 SURP class includes men and women — ranging in academic year from freshman to senior — who are interested in pursuing careers in biomedical sciences and who have traveled from around the country to join the program. Twelve of the participants are from the northeast, while others come from Hawaii, California, Washington, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, and Texas.
Current GSK graduate students have volunteered for the role of “Big Sibs” to assist the SURP undergraduates with the transition to New York City. Their role is to be available to mentor and advise throughout the summer experience. Ideally, the bonds formed between the GSK graduate students and their undergraduate trainees will continue long after the program ends. We hope to see many of the SURP alumni return to GSK as graduate school applicants.
In addition to a productive lab rotation, the summer program includes weekly scientific seminars, journal clubs run by GSK students, and individual works-in-progress meetings in the format of chalk talks. The program culminates in a community-wide poster session in August during which four outstanding students will be named the 2014 Rubin and Sarah Shaps Scholars. The program also includes workshops to help the students sharpen their presentation and interview skills, as well as social events such as a visit to the Bronx Zoo and an evening harbor cruise.
The institutions of the 2014 SURP class include Bates College; Brown University; Columbia University; Connecticut College; Cornell University; Dartmouth College; Georgetown University; Harvey Mudd College; Johns Hopkins University; Oberlin College; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Rice University; Union College; University of California, Davis; University of Connecticut; University of Hawaii at Manoa; University of Maryland, College Park; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; University of Notre Dame; University of Texas at Austin; and Williams College.