High School Teachers
The RCN supports a three week summer internship for high school teachers to provide exposure to molecular, genetic, cell biological and bioinformatics approaches in current pollen biology, so that they will incorporate knowledge and excitement about research in biology to their classroom. It is expected that these teachers will intern within commuting distance of the host laboratories, so that long-term interactions between mentors and interns are possible. Applications for these internships should be initiated by PIs of the host laboratories with an interested teacher already identified. A stipend of $750 per week is provided.
Application and Selection procedures
To apply, a 1-2 page statement describing the goal and justification for the proposed project should be submitted to the RCN, c/o Alice Cheung at acheung@biochem.umass.edu. Inquiries may also be submitted to Alice Cheung. Recipients will be expected to communicate the outcome of their activities to the Network, provide feedback on the effectiveness of this effort and acknowledge support from the Network in publications. The RCN may invite some of the recipients to present their work in future network annual meetings.
A total of 15 collaboration- and diversity-enhancement projects, as well as three to four high school teacher summer internships are open for application in the first award year. The RCN’s Steering Committee will review applications for subsidies for collaborative and diversity enhancement projects periodically (monthly). For summer internship applications, reviews will be conducted in late spring (April, early May) to facilitate applicants’ summer planning. As our network is learning to coordinate the supported activities in our first award year, we especially encourage projects involving the RCN working group.
Graduate and undergraduate internships
We also sponsor graduate and undergraduate students to do pollen-related research projects in participating RCN labs. For more information, contact RCN PI Alice Cheung.
Pollen RCN interns thus far include:
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Summer 2010 |
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| Loraine and McCormick Labs. Phuc (Peter) Pham of UNC Charlotte and Roshonda Barner of North Carolina A&T studied gene expression in pollen using RNA-Seq data sets from Arabidopsis pollen and seedlings. Peter also helped design and implement the Pollen RCN Web site. |
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Johnson Lab. High school teacher Chris Munzert, who teaches biotechnology at Mt. Hope High School in Bristol, Rhode Island, worked with Mark Johnson and his lab at Brown University. During his internship, Chris learned Agrobacterium-mediated plant transformation, worked toward building a plasmid, and studied the effects of environmental toxins on pollen tube growth. Chris is interested in helping his students to develop plant and pollen biology-oriented science fair projects. His teaching lab at Bristol is fully outfitted for molecular biology and tissue culture, and he looks forward to developing new materials for his high school biotechnology classes. |
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2011 |
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We are eagerly awaiting applications and ideas for internship projects for 2011. If you are interested in learning more about pollen research and/or techniques in bioinformatics as they apply to the biology of pollen, please get in touch. Contact Alice Cheung at acheung@biochem.umass.edu. |
