Outreach Director, Bonnie Kaiser, PhD

Scientia Pro bono humani generis. Science for the benefit of humanity.

For more than a century Rockefeller University's noble mission remains as robust as ever. As Founding Director, I am proud that the Rockefeller community embraces the idea and practice of mentoring K-12 teachers and high school students in laboratory research. Mentors have gone on to head their own labs having gained experience in balancing the responsibilities of research, mentoring, and teaching. Teachers have progressed from implementing inquiry-based science in their classrooms to taking responsibility for entire schools, and students have persisted toward careers in medicine, science, mathematics, and engineering. Scientists have also become K-12 teachers and teachers have become scientists while students have also found their love of the arts, finance, or the practice of law. We are honored to be in the cycle of science for the benefit of humanity.

You are beginning an adventure to attempt to discover new knowledge through a method of teaching and learning that is as old as medieval guilds and remains the method of choice for graduate training. Apprenticed to a mentor, you will learn the content, process, culture and ethos of modern scientific research through total immersion in the process of scientific inquiry. The inquiry process will guide you as you research areas where no one knows the answers - neither your mentor nor your lab head.

The Program is designed to help you maximize your research experience. It will help you accomplish two goals; 1) to have a practical, laboratory experience working with your mentor to gain insight into how and why scientific research is done, and 2) to document your experience by communicating your work in a Poster Session and Research Report. Your scientific work is not complete unless it has been communicated such that your audience can understand it.

Increasingly, scientists are being asked to communicate to a lay audience and to justify their basic research in terms of societal needs. Biomedical research is by its nature Scientia Pro Bono Humani Generis. That is the University's motto and means Science For the Benefit of Humanity. Traditionally, novices do present their work in their labs sometime during the summer. Your Research Report is a work-in-progress that shows the status of your research at the end of the summer. Although the Program supports your work with your mentor, it is expected that you will work with your mentor to write the report and respect issues of confidentiality and rigor. If the work will be entered in a science competition or submitted for publication in a scientific journal, then the full paper should also be submitted to the Director when the lab head feels that it is ready.

By the time you begin you will have met with your mentor to discuss possible projects, chosen one, and received literature and other journal references. The first few weeks may seem rather disorienting. Labs will vary in their expectations and requirements. Early on, however, you will receive a general introduction, tour, training in any necessary techniques, procedures, operation of equipment - and what should NOT be touched - expectations about working hours, and lab etiquette and meetings.

Research labs are very different from high school labs. You may be working alongside high school or college students, technicians, graduates, postdocs, teachers, and visiting professors. Heads of labs do not hover but they do keep on top of things and guide research projects formally and informally. Although many lab heads still enjoy the luxury of doing benchwork, some have little or no time for hands-on science. They write articles and proposals, peer-review articles and proposals, and travel to give lectures, consult, or attend committee meetings. Scientists must raise their own funding in order to do their work. This is partly dependent on publishing quality work. Sometimes this may lead to friendly competition within a lab or shifts in mood from the satisfaction of publishing first to the abject disappointment of being scooped.

Communication is central to doing science. Therefore, trust and confidence in your lab skills is essential. Novices, once trained, are expected to show that their data is reproducible and true. Any scientific communication from the lab - verbal, written, or electronic - MUST be with the advice and consent of the laboratory head and your day-to-day mentor. If you have any questions about this, it is very important that you discuss this with your mentor.

Projects are long-term and may shift into other areas. Each has a history and a literature, a cast of competitors and collaborators. Stymied by what may seem like a dead end, you may be pleasantly astonished at the advice, techniques, and guesses that can be marshaled quickly and casually.

You will also learn that it is frustrating to do science. You may sense that you are spending a lot of time and effort and have expectations for accomplishing more than can reasonably be expected. By and large, progress in science moves more slowly or extremely rapidly at breakthrough points. You are here for a short time. It is time to get a lot done but it can be very frustrating when things don't work or the reagent you need doesn't arrive. You may be thrown on your own devices and need to be resourceful in using your time before you are even sure of how you can help, who to go to and when to ask for advice, learning what the lab can teach you, and doing what needs to be done. This stuff is not in textbooks. And, journal articles have to be read several times before they begin to make sense - usually around the sixth week of total immersion. Along with the ever-present fear of the agony of defeat comes the exhilaration of going where no one has gone before and learning something for the first time that no one else knows. And, then having the skills to communicate those findings to others.