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The Interview:

Karen. Tell me about your URECA research project, and how you became involved.
Pamela. Dr. Collins and Dr. Solomon are now collaborating on a project looking to use acute intermittent hypoxia as a treatment for bladder sphincter dyssynergia after spinal cord injuries. We’re looking at how the action of the carotid body chemoreceptor contributes to the urinary bladder response to hypoxia. 
I had contacted Dr. Collins last spring. He remembered me from office hours when I took BIO203, and it turned out that he was looking for new undergraduates for this project that he was starting that summer. So I decided to apply to URECA. I really wanted the chance to focus on being in the lab and not have to work at the same time. I have to work. I need money to bring myself through school, to pay for tuition. So URECA was super, super-important to me. Getting the URECA funding last summer allowed me vast amounts of time in the lab—much more than I would otherwise have been able to dedicate to research.

There must have so many new skills and techniques to learn.
Yes, absolutely. I had some clinical research experience– but I never done anything like this before. It showed me what bench work was like for the first time. I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to master the protocols or techniques. I didn’t really see myself as a researcher when I first started. But URECA allowed to actually perfect my skills in the lab. I spent a lot of time there each week—sometimes working 12 hour days, 5 or 6 days a week!... I just found that I really loved it. It opened up this new academic avenue for me...I went in, essentially not having any lab skills. But I was able to perfect them over the summer. And I was able to hit the ground running the next semester in the fall. After doing URECA last summer, I became autonomous in the lab. I was able to complete an experiment by myself and bring those results to Dr. Collins and to process my own data.

Is it a challenge, balancing academics and research during the school year?
I admit I have trouble with work/life balance because I really love work. But it is definitely manageable to balance hours in the lab and classes.
With the type of research that I’m doing in the Collins lab, the thing to remember is that we do such long experiments. To do one experiment from start to finish, you need 8 or more hours.  So I had to arrange my schedule so that I have almost 3 days that are free, during the week. I decided to take online classes for physics so that I can continue to be productive in my research.
It would have been almost impossible for me to be involved in this if I didn’t start in the summer—and have that time to really perfect the techniques I needed to learn. That’s why URECA was so important for me. I needed to be able to spend all that time learning how to do things.

Will you have the chance to present your work, share what you’ve learned so far?
Yes – we’ve got some interesting preliminary data. I’ll be going to the Experimental Biology conference in San Diego in April. I’ve never been to a research conference before. This is another thing that URECA opened up to me which I’m grateful for. Going to an entire conference is going to be such a great window for me to learn more about different research areas. I can’t wait.

Are you planning to stay in the lab through senior year?
Absolutely. I’m involved in lots of activities, but I absolutely love my days in the lab. Dr. Collins is so patient and so accommodating. He helped set up an entire different room for me to do experiments.  And I have a really good working relationship with him, and with Dr. Solomon.

Do you find that research gives you a different perspective about your classwork?
It definitely helps me retain certain information from BIO203 – standard physiology intro material that I remember so much more because I’m applying the information a lot. …And it even helps me appreciate classes that are not as connected to the health field, such as physics. For my research, I need to know how circuits work, and to know what Ohm’s law is – so it’s good in that way too, helping to see the connections that are there.  Plus, I think that in some ways, doing lab work it helps you fall in love with your classes more.

How so?
It allows me to see physiology happen. To be able to be in the lab and to open up a rat and stimulate nerves and transect nerves and take those measurements and analyze that data… it’s really satisfying. I’ve learned so much. When I first started…it was hard to find a protocol written up for some of the things we were doing. I had to go and seek out papers that were describing related procedures, and look at anatomy textbooks. I kind of had to figure out what procedures I was going to use …. I really wanted to understand what I’m doing and to be able to make my own decisions in terms of choosing what experiments I was going to do. I found that it was really, really satisfying when I finally got my experiment to work. I actually used science to do something.

What are your future plans?
I would love to pursue an MD/PhD. Neurology is really my goal. I want to work with people with neurological disorders and disabilities. And I want to have the tools to run my own lab and to be involved in research.

It’s amazing seeing the range of experiences you’ve had as an undergraduate, with your research, your volunteer work, etc.
It’s been a whirlwind of 3 years! And yes – in addition to research, I love being an EMT. I love working in a group home- working with people with disabilities. And I see a lot of crossover with the research I’m doing in Dr. Collins and the clinical work. …To some, it may sound funny when I say that I’m doing “incontinence research” or working with a lot of rat pee…But having the opportunity to work with people who have incontinence because of neurological problems – to see the impact it has on so many people’s lives….it just makes the research that I’m doing in the lab that much more important.

What advice would you give to students who are thinking about research?
Don’t doubt yourself. I got involved a lot later than I think many students do just because I did not consider myself a researcher… I was intimated by research, and I didn’t really know what was involved. The work that I’m doing now with electrophysiology is much more hands-on, say, than the lab work I did in freshman chemistry classes. I’m doing stuff that I’m super, super engaged with. And yet, I wouldn’t have experienced it if I hadn’t tried it out. So my advice is to find a lab and a research area that really interests you. Don’t be intimated by not feeling like a researcher. Don’t count yourself out.

Did you know you were interested in neuroscience when you first come in to SB?
Not at all. In high school, I thought I was going to go to art school. I spent a lot of time getting my portfolio together…But even when I got in to the competitive schools I had applied to, I came to realize that I couldn’t afford it. It was so out of my budget. So I made the decision to come to SB. And somehow, I gravitated towards the health field, in part because so many around me were interested in it.
…It was a huge shift. I probably wouldn’t have even considered health as a future career/profession if I had not come here to Stony Brook. But I feel more fulfilled doing this than anything I had ever thought about doing before.  

What are some of the long term benefits for you of doing research?
Becoming more confident, more independent. At first, I was not that independent with troubleshooting. I could learn how to do an experiment all the way through perfectly one day and the next day, the electrodes wouldn’t work …I might not know how to fix the experiment when it went wrong. That skill took longer to develop. And the process was frustrating at first…but you develop more perseverance over time. You realize that things go wrong. If you can keep your cool and try to figure it out by yourself, a lot of times you can troubleshoot the problem. I’ve developed over time to the point where I come on Saturdays and do an experiment by myself.

URECA just opened up so many doors. I tell all of my friends, apply for URECA. The money is great – but it also says you are going to do your own project. …You are going to be in this lab because you are going to make decisions. Having the goal to have an autonomous project, and to present something changes the way that you conduct yourself in the lab. It makes you think more critically. The connections also mean so much.